By Andrea Shalal, David Lawder and Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON, April 28 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary

Scott Bessent on Monday said many top U.S. trading partners had

made 'very good' proposals to avert U.S. tariffs, and one of the

first deals to be signed would likely be with India.

"I would guess that India would be one of the first

trade deals we would sign," Bessent told CNBC, adding that the

U.S. had also held very substantial negotiations with Japan and

discussions with other Asian trading partners were going well.

"Vice President Vance was in India last week, talked about

substantial progress. I have mentioned that the negotiations

with the Republic of Korea have gone very well, and I think

we've had some very substantial negotiations with our Japanese

allies," Bessent told CNBC.

Speaking to reporters after two early morning television

interviews, Besssent said the first such trade agreement might

come this week or next.

He told CNBC that China's recent moves to exempt certain

U.S. goods from its retaliatory tariffs showed that it wanted to

de-escalate trade tensions with the United States, and said the

U.S. had refrained from escalating by embargoing those goods.

Bessent told Fox News that President Donald Trump will

be "intimately involved" in each of the bespoke trade deals with

each of 15 to 18 important trading partners, but it will be

important to reach agreements in principle soon.

Asked whether he planned to call his Chinese counterpart

to jump-start negotiations between the world's two largest

economies, Bessent told Fox News: We'll see what happens with

China. It's important. I think it's unsustainable from the

Chinese side. So maybe they'll call me one day."

He earlier told CNBC that "all aspects of government are

in contact with China," and underscored that it was up to China

to reduce tensions since they sold five times more goods to the

U.S. than vice versa.