United States President Donald Trump on Monday said that Washington will bring down the tariffs imposed on India “at some point” and claimed that New Delhi has substantially reduced its purchase of Russian oil.

“Right now, the tariffs are very high on India because of Russian oil and they’ve stopped doing the Russian oil,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “It’s been reduced very substantially…We are going to be bringing the tariffs down. At some point, we are going to be bringing them down.”

Trump also said that his country was getting close to a “fair deal” with India.

The US president has repeatedly alleged that India’s purchases were helping to fund Russia’s war on Ukraine.

On October 15, Trump told reporters that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to halt India’s Russian oil imports “within a short period of time”, which he described as “a big stop”.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs neither confirmed nor denied Trump’s claim, but maintained that ensuring stable energy prices and secure supplies were the goals of the country’s energy policy.

However, subsequently, ministry Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a press conference that as per his information, no telephonic conversation had taken place between Modi and Trump that day.

The combined tariff rate for India is at 50%. A 25% so-called reciprocal duty was imposed on August 7, followed by an additional 25% punitive levy on August 27.

After the punitive levies were announced, New Delhi had said it was “extremely unfortunate” that the US had chosen to impose additional tariffs on India “for actions that several other countries are also taking in their own national interest”.

Recently, however, trade talks between the two countries have gained fresh momentum.

A team of Indian officials led by Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agarwal visited Washington DC in October to hold trade negotiations with the US. In September, Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal had also led a delegation to New York for trade talks.

When asked about the trade talks, Trump said on Monday: “We’re making a deal with India, much different than we had in the past. So right now, they don't love me, but they’ll love us again.”

He added: “We’re getting a fair deal, just a fair trade deal. We had pretty unfair trade deals...But we’re getting close.”