Washington DC, July 27 -- India should focus on giving President Trump an eye-catching headline rather than getting stuck in details to seal a trade deal with Washington, says Mukesh Aghi, who heads the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum. In an interview with HT, Aghi said the risk of the trade deal falling through is high as Trump wants a bigger agreement. Edited excerpts: India was the first country to start negotiations and we made a lot of progress. Last week, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and US trade representative Jameson Greer gave the proposal to the President. However, the President wanted a bigger deal. This was a phase one deal that does not address agriculture and dairy, which is a red line for India. The challenge is that we are so entrenched in the grain of the deal rather than giving a big picture headline to the President since he loves headlines. My recommendation would be that India should tell President Trump this is a "trillion dollar deal" - taking trade between the two countries from $200 billion to $1 trillion. Then look at Indian companies' investments in the US. Last year we had investments worth $12-15 billion. We can tell the president that in the next five years, Indian companies will invest half a trillion dollars. We need to give a headline platform, otherwise the deal will get stuck. The risk of a deal not moving forward is high. The risk of India having a 26% tariff has implications. It's not just about Indian exports. It's about US companies looking at India for de-risking their supply chains, and if they have to put 26% more tariff, they'll go somewhere else. But if it's 15%, then India becomes more attractive. So, the risk factor is not about exports. This risk factor is creating more jobs, getting other companies to come in and invest more in the country. To me, that's a bigger risk. If you see Trump's record, he reneged on deals with Mexico, South Korea and Japan. So there are no guarantees, but you have to understand the world has changed. It's a world basically driven by the brute muscle diplomacy of the United States and you can't fight that. You can figure out ways to live through that. India has to learn from that perspective. After cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, to government programmes Medicare and Medicaid, cheap prescription drugs are very critical for Trump's base. Today, 40% of prescription drugs come from India, and if you take that cost up by putting tariffs, that's going to hurt Trump's base. So I don't think the objective is to target that segment of the drug market. They're more focused on the devices coming from Europe. The relationship is as good as it was. What is happening is we are reacting to some of the statements being made by the President. We need to have a thick skin. We can't be thin-skinned and react to it. He makes the same statements for his closest allies including Japan, France, Canada and India should not react to it. The relationship is not just with the White House, it's also the larger administration. It's with the Congress, it's with the business community, it's with the Indian diaspora. It's a relationship based on technology. So the relationship is much broader, we should not react if a president makes a statement and his statement changes on the hour. That's the wrong strategy. We need to be proactive. When the President said he brokered the ceasefire between Pakistan and India, instead of being defensive, we should say we will nominate him for two Nobel Prizes. The whole game has changed. Waiting out is not the answer, because you have US companies thinking of making critical decisions on de-risking the supply chain from China and if India has a lower tariff and a deal with the US, then they will look at India....