Washington: US President Donald Trump has indicated that a full-fledged trade agreement with India was unlikely during his visit there next week – or even this year – but a “very big one” was in the offing.

“I don’t know if it’ll be done before the election, but we’ll have a very big deal with India,” he told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Tuesday when he was asked about the likelihood of it during the visit to India.

But he left room open for a symbolic preliminary agreement.

He said, “I’m really saving the big deal for later on. We’re doing a very big trade deal with India. We’ll have it.”

Complaining about the progress of the trade deal negotiations, he said, “We’re not treated very well by India.”, He quickly added, “But I happen to like Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi a lot.”