President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi shake hands during a news conference in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025, in Washington.
| Photo Credit: AP
India and the U.S. agreed to negotiate the first segment of a trade agreement by the autumn of 2025, with India looking to increase energy purchases from the U.S. to address President Donald Trump’s concerns about the U.S.’s trade deficit with India, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi met U.S. President Donald Trump for bilateral discussions in Washington.
Mr. Trump announced that his administration had cleared the way for the extradition of Tahawwur Rana, wanted in India in connection with the ‘26/11’ terrorist attack in Mumbai, in 2008.
Mr. Trump said the U.S. was “paving the way to ultimately provide India with F35 stealth fighters”. The delegates met for around four hours on Thursday (February 13, 2025). Attendees included External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and others. The . joint statement, released late on Thursday as Mr Modi was about to depart the U.S. , covered a range of topics: defence, trade, energy, technology, multilateral cooperation and people to people ties.
The two sides agreed to more than double bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030, as part of ‘Mission 500’.
Standing beside Mr. Modi in the East Room of the White House at a press conference, Mr. Trump called India’s tariffs “unfair” and a “problem”. Earlier in the day the President had announced a broad policy for reciprocal tariffs, specifically citing Indian tariffs during the signing of the order.
At the joint press conference, Mr. Trump said the two sides had agreed to negotiations to reduce the deficit. Mr Trump said the deficit could be made up with the sale of American oil and gas (LNG) to India.
The two countries announced a framework of cooperation, the U.S.-India COMPACT (Catalyzing Opportunities for Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce & Technology) for the 21st C. They also announced a decade-long framework to deepen defence cooperation, including the procurement of six additional P-8I Maritime Patrol aircraft for India for surveillance of the Indian Ocean Region.
The two sides will reopen negotiations for a Reciprocal Defence Procurement (RDP) agreement to align their procurement systems and reconsider their arms transfer regimes. Specifically, the U.S. would look into its International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) rules to enable transfers of military technology.
The sides announced the scaling up of production and partnerships in the Indo Pacific for underwater domain awareness technologies, under a new initiative called the Autonomous Systems Industry Alliance.
In terms of their energy partnership, the two sides agreed to fully operationalise the U.S.-India 123 Civil Nuclear Agreement and to jointly build U.S.-designed nuclear reactors in India. “The U.S. side affirmed its firm support for India to join the International Energy Agency as a full member,” the joint statement said.
In technology cooperation, India and the U.S. announced a partnership, “Transforming the Relationship Utilizing Strategic Technology” (TRUST), to enhance cooperation across government, academia and the private sectors to support the application of critical and emerging technologies in a wide range of sectors from space and energy to biotechnology.
They also agreed to formulate a roadmap on Accelerating AI Infrastructure.
In terms of multilateral cooperation, in addition to reaffirming the Quad, the two sides planned to convene partners of the IMEC (India Middle East Europe Corridor) group and I2U2 (India, Israel, the U.S. and UAE) within six months to announce new initiatives.
“The leaders recognized the need to build new plurilateral anchor partnerships in the Western Indian Ocean, Middle East, and Indo-Pacific to grow relationships, commerce and cooperation across defense, technology, energy and critical minerals,” the statement said, adding that they would announce initiatives for each of these sub-regions by the autumn of 2025.
Mr. Modi and Mr. Trump agreed to streamline legal mobility for students and professionals, as well as short term business and tourist travel. They committed to aggressively combating illegal migration and human trafficking. The U.S. had returned 104 undocumented migrants to India last week, with the government facing criticism for the U.S. shackling many of the deportees during the 40 hour flight.
Mr Trump is expected later this year in India for the Quad Summit.
Published – February 14, 2025 10:03 am IST