Issuing a strong rebuttal regarding news reports claiming that India has temporarily halted talks related to the defence deals with the US, the Ministry of Defence dubbed them as false and fabricated.
A news report on Friday claimed that India has paused plans to purchase weapons and aircraft following US President Donald Trump’s announcement of an additional 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods.
The report also claimed that India had intended to send Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to Washington in the near future to announce certain defence procurements, but the visit was ultimately called off.
Denying these reports, a source in the Defence Ministry stated, “The news claiming that India has paused talks related to defence purchases with the US is false and fabricated. It is clarified that the various procurement cases are being progressed as per the extant procedures.”
As previously reported, these reports came in the wake of Trump signing an executive order imposing an additional 25 per cent penalty tariff on Indian goods. This comes on top of an earlier reciprocal 25 per cent tariff, effectively doubling the tariff rate on Indian exports to the US, India’s largest export market. The move is widely perceived as a response to India’s continued purchase of Russian oil, which the US President has linked to funding Russia’s war against Ukraine.