In a move that underscores its determination to keep pace with international rivals, U.S. President Donald Trump declared on Monday that a trade agreement with India has been reached. This development follows closely behind the European Union’s recent trade pact with New Delhi, highlighting Washington’s intent to remain competitive in the global arena.

This U.S.-India trade accord emerges amid a flurry of international agreements, such as those between the European Union and India, and others involving China and Canada. These deals have left the United States, often quick to levy tariffs on trade partners, appearing somewhat isolated in the global market.

Experts had predicted that the EU-India agreement, in particular, might spur the U.S. to expedite its negotiations with India. However, the completion of this deal has surprised many by occurring earlier than anticipated.

Taking to Truth Social on Monday, Trump revealed that the United States would lower its primary tariff on Indian goods from 25% to 18%. Additionally, he announced the removal of an extra 25% tariff that had been imposed on India the previous summer as a response to its oil purchases from Russia.

Posting on the Truth Social media platform, Trump said India would stop buying Russian oil and would buy “over $500 BILLION DOLLARS of U.S. Energy, Technology, Agricultural, Coal, and many other products” and remove trade barriers with the U.S. There has been no official release to accompany Trump’s remarks.

The U.S.-India deal — which was cheered by Asia markets Tuesday — is “an emphatic answer to those thinking the EU is flanking or gaining speed on the U.S. on trade,” Terry Haines, founder of analysis firm Pangaea Policy, commented on LinkedIn.

“The U.S.-India deal is the next major Trump natsec [National Security Strategy] x economic “interdependence” trade deal with a major U.S. ally/major unaligned country,” Haines noted.

“It’s a strong signal that Trump is ‘walking and chewing gum at the same time’, not letting geopolitics distract from U.S. economic attention and continuing to do major trade deals,” he added.

The speedy conclusion of the U.S.-India pact has not been lost on analysts as it comes just a week after the “landmark” EU-India free trade agreement (FTA) was reached.

The FTA saw the regional power blocs agree to reduce tariffs on a range of each other’s imported goods to almost zero, but they also said the agreement would be implemented gradually over a number of years. Still, both sides hailed the deal, reached after decades of talks, as the “mother of all deals.”

Farwa Aamer, director of South Asia Initiatives at the Asia Society Policy Institute, commented Tuesday that the conclusion of the U.S.-India pact “is interesting as the deal comes straight after the EU-FTA.”

“Though India-U.S. trade negotiations were on for a while, the deal with EU could have served as impetus for the U.S. to push forward. Again, it was finally the leadership-level engagement that we have been talking about since the beginning that was able to bring the deal around,” he said in emailed comments.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi confirmed the latest deal with the U.S. had been done, posting on X Monday that he was “delighted that Made in India products will now have a reduced tariff of 18%,” as he thanked Trump for his leadership.

While official details on the deal remain scant, the agreement is seen as a “win-win” for both sides.

“This is a very big deal because it’s on the back of the EU FTA also,” Ranen Banerjee, partner and Economic Advisory leader of PwC India, told CNBC’s Amitoj Singh.

“With the EU FTA coming in and the U.S. [deal] coming in, it’s going to give a big boost to jobs and employment to India. So I would say that it’s a win-win for both the countries.”

Arpit Chaturvedi, South Asia advisor at Teneo, agreed that the U.S.-India deal “needs to be read alongside” India’s FTA with the EU.

“That deal lifted some pressure on New Delhi by providing an alternative Western economic anchor amid global tariff volatility. Even so, the U.S. agreement carries greater strategic weight,” he said in emailed analysis Tuesday.

“Stabilizing trade ties with Washington therefore goes beyond tariff arithmetic and reinforces India’s place within Western supply chains and strategic calculus. The deal also represents a reset for India-U.S. strategic relations, likely enabling both sides to engage on a relatively equal footing.”

Not everyone is immediately impressed by the U.S.-India announcement, however, with some analysts warning that details are needed in order to assess the wider and longer-term impact of the agreement.

“PM Modi’s social media post is silent on the Russian oil issue. India is also supposed to reduce its tariffs and non-tariff barriers, but the exact details of those adjustments have not yet been announced,” Samiran Chakraborty, chief economist for India at Citi, noted Tuesday.

“India is also likely to purchase a higher amount of U.S. goods (President Trump has mentioned $500 billion) though the timeframe … and specifics are yet unavailable,” he added.

Paul Donavon, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management, commented Tuesday that the deal, as we know it, would have little effect on U.S. citizens who have seen domestic prices pushed up as a result of Trump’s global tariffs policy, with extra costs passed on to consumers.

“Trump’s social media post suggests a deal has been done with India to reduce the tariffs paid by U.S. importers … [but] the move will have little effect on the U.S. affordability crisis — Indian imports are less than 3% of the U.S. total. While tariff increases are readily passed to consumers, tariff reductions (strangely) are less likely to be passed through,” Donovan remarked in a UBS podcast Tuesday.