Davos: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he has great respect for his "friend" Prime Minister Narendra Modi and they are going to have a good trade deal, according to a media report.

"I have great respect for your Prime Minister. He's a fantastic man and a friend of mine. We are going to have a good deal," Moneycontrol quoted Trump as saying.

The report said the brief statement was made exclusively to it in a reply to a question on the India-US trade agreement.

The US President was in Davos to attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

Earlier, India's Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal asserted that the much-anticipated first tranche of the India-US BTA is "very near", but stopped short of providing a timeline.

The BTA, formally proposed in February following directives from the leadership of both nations, seeks to more than double bilateral trade, from the current USD 191 billion to USD 500 billion by 2030.

Talks were first announced during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Washington in February 2025.

On January 9, the Ministry of External Affairs said, "India and the United States were committed to negotiating a bilateral trade agreement with the US as far as far back as 13th of February last year. That is, since then, two sides have held multiple rounds of negotiations to arrive at a balanced and mutually beneficial trade agreement."

"On several occasions, we have been close to a deal," the MEA spokesperson added. (With inputs from Agencies)