External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday said that negotiations on the India-US trade deal were progressing towards a possible conclusion, adding that both sides were working to resolve outstanding issues.

In a conversation with John Micklethwait, Editor-in-Chief at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Delhi, Jaishankar said that discussions were ongoing between the trade officials of both countries, while noting that he would not disclose details of the negotiations publicly.

"I think we are waiting on a few things.

I wouldn't be comfortable spilling the beans in public.

It's a small select order...

When countries negotiate with an economy like the US, obviously one part of it is what you work out between yourselves and the US, and one part of it is how you fare vis-a-vis competitive economies.

That part of it is not entirely clear because not everybody has worked out the deal.

I think people, the trade ministers, USTR, and our Commerce and Industry Minister are there, working on that.

They're ironing it out.

My sense is that this is an issue which is heading towards a landing point," Jaishankar said.

The External Affairs Minister also said that the US had changed the manner and basis on which it engaged with the world, requiring countries to reassess their bilateral relationships.

"I never said it was easy.

So I said, engage America, manage China...

In 2020, I was looking at a world.

I was looking at Brexit, Donald Trump's election, the backlash against globalisation, and kind of partly forecasting, partly analysing, where's the world going and how does India react to this? So your question, in a way: how difficult is it to engage America? You make it sound as though we are the only country having problems with the United States.

The reality is the United States has repositioned itself.

It's changed the manner in which it engages the world, the basis on which it engages the world.

I think every country, in a way, has to recalculate and reset its relationship with the United States," he said.

Jaishankar further explained that India's relationship with the United States was based on a strategic partnership rather than a formal alliance, adding that the underlying areas of convergence between the two countries had not fundamentally changed.

"I think a lot of what America is revising are its alliances, the terms of its treaty relationships.

So the sentiment is most strongly felt vis-a-vis Europe, to some extent, some countries in....