India, Feb. 3 -- It was hanging fire for a year, with major troughs in between; and then it happened all too quickly. The manner in which a US-India trade deal was announced by President Donald Trump, and then confirmed by PM Narendra Modi, on Monday has left many questions unanswered. Mathematically, these questions range from zero to 500 billion.

In his Truth Social post, Trump described Modi as a "great friend" and "powerful leader", terms he used even when he and administration berated New Delhi on global stages over the past few months. And then he declared, unilaterally, that Modi had "agreed to stop buying Russian Oil, and to buy much more from the United States and, potentially, Venezuela".

India's Russian oil purchases, despite...