India on Thursday flatly rejected a Bloomberg report that claimed New Delhi was prepared to wait out US President Donald Trump’s second term to finalise an India-US trade deal. The report had claimed that this was conveyed by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in September last year.Responding to media queries, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the report was without factual basis. “There is absolutely no basis for that report. No such meeting or no such visit had taken place,” he said.The denial comes amid a debate over the contours of the India-US trade deal, following a Bloomberg report citing official sources in New Delhi. The report claimed that India had conveyed to Washington its willingness to delay the conclusion of a trade agreement, even if it meant waiting through Trump’s second term in office.According to the report, the alleged conversation took place in Washington, DC, in early September 2025, shortly after the US imposed 50 per cent tariff on Indian exports. This was also around the time Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Tianjin, China, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.Bloomberg further claimed that Doval had told Rubio that India would not be “bullied” by Trump or his aides, and that New Delhi was prepared to endure pressure, having faced hostile US administrations in the past.The MEA’s categorical rejection of the report signals New Delhi’s effort to quash speculation surrounding behind-the-scenes exchanges with Washington at a sensitive moment in bilateral trade negotiations.Officials indicated that India’s public position on engagement with the US remains unchanged and that speculative reporting should not be read as reflecting official policy or diplomatic exchanges.