Alaska Summit: India Tariffs 'Influenced' Meet, Putin Convinced Of Making Deal, Says Trump

The secondary sanction of 25% on India over importing Russian oil has "influenced" Russian President Vladimir Putin's upcoming meeting with US counterpart Donald Trump in Alaska, the latter shared on Thursday.

Trump added that Putin is convinced of making a deal. The two leaders are scheduled to meet on Friday.

Trump, while appearing on the Brian Kilmeade Radio show, said he would "call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy if it's a good meeting with Putin." While Trump stated that he had three locations in mind for a potential meeting, he suggested that a meeting in Alaska would be the "easiest."

Trump, however, did not shy away from estimating that there was a "25% chance the meeting is a failure."

Meanwhile, Putin also offered an assessment of the current US administration's efforts in striking a deal, as per a statement issued by Kremlin. "The present US administration, which, as everyone knows, has been making what I consider to be fairly vigorous and sincere efforts to halt hostilities, resolve the crisis, and reach agreements that serve the interests of all parties involved in this conflict," he was quoted as saying.

Putin also spoke of "subsequent stages involving agreements on strategic offensive arms control," which comes in the light of Trump's recent order on positioning of nuclear submarines near Russia.

The decision was taken based on the "highly provocative statements" of former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Trump said in a post on social media on Aug. 1.

Meanwhile, policymakers in India will keep a keen watch on the outcome of the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska. Shashi Tharoor, the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on External Affairs, said that the US could remove the additional 25% tariffs on India, if the war between Russia and Ukraine ends.

"If after the meeting with Putin, there is a meeting with Ukraine, then the second 25% tariff imposed on us due to buying Russian oil will be removed, because it was in the context of the war (between Russia and Ukraine)," Tharoor said, while speaking to news agency ANI.