United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday said in an interview to Breitbart News that he believes India will likely reduce the tariffs that it imposes on American goods.

“I believe they’re going to probably going to be lowering those tariffs substantially, but on April 2, we will be charging them the same tariffs they charge us,” Trump told the American news network.

New Delhi, however, is yet to make any commitments to Washington on tariffs and has sought time until September to address the matter, the Union government told a parliamentary panel on March 10.

This came two days after Trump said that India had agreed to “cut their tariffs way down”. On March 5, he had announced that reciprocal tariffs would be imposed on India, China and other countries from April 2.

The US president has repeatedly said he intends to impose a reciprocal tax on India, citing high tariffs imposed by New Delhi on foreign goods.

Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal had told the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs that India was working with the United States to ensure a mutually beneficial trade agreement. Barthwal said the agreement would focus on long-term trade cooperation rather than immediate tariff adjustments.

Unlike China, Mexico and Canada – which are also facing tariffs from the Trump administration – New Delhi was engaged with Washington on a trade deal, the commerce secretary said.

Barthwal told the panel that the United States had not yet officially imposed new tariffs on India, and New Delhi could only act once that happened.

Opposition leaders such as All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi, Congress’ Deepender Hooda and Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghosh questioned Barthwal about Trump’s March 5 announcement.

On March 5, Trump had said: “On average, the European Union, China, Brazil, India, Mexico and Canada and countless other nations charge us tremendously higher tariffs. India charges us auto tariffs higher than 100%. China’s average tariffs on our products are twice of what we charge them. This system is not fair to the United States of America.”

On March 7, Trump added that New Delhi wanted to “cut their tariffs way down now because somebody’s finally exposing them for what they have done”.

Earlier that day, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said that New Delhi was working to reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers with Washington and enhance trade in goods and services through “a mutually beneficial, multi-sector bilateral trade agreement”.

“Our objective through the BTA [bilateral trade agreement] is to strengthen and deepen India-US two-way trade across the goods and services sector, increase market access, reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers, and deepen supply chain integration between the two countries,” said ministry Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal.