India’s Prime Minister Modi and US President Trump agreed on a safety agenda that can even handle ‘terrorism’.
United States President Donald Trump plans to dramatically ramp up weapons gross sales to India this yr, together with supersonic F-35 fighter jets, following a gathering with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Modi met with Trump in Washington on Thursday the place the pair mentioned every part from commerce to immigration, and safety was excessive on the agenda.
“Beginning this yr, we’ll be growing army gross sales to India by many billions of {dollars},” Trump advised a joint information convention with Modi.
“We’re additionally paving the best way to finally present India with the F-35 stealth fighters,” he stated.
The US president stated the 2 international locations would work collectively on safety points, together with “the specter of radical Islamic terrorism”, and a commerce deal that can see India import extra US oil and gasoline to shrink the US commerce deficit with India.
Modi is barely the fourth world chief to go to Trump since his inauguration, however the pair had developed an in depth relationship throughout Trump’s first time period in workplace. These ties might have helped the leaders strike the big defence deal.
India’s Overseas Secretary Vikram Misri later stated the F-35 stealth fighter deal was a proposal at this level, with no formal course of below means.
The White Home didn’t reply to a request for remark by the Reuters information company on the deal. Lockheed Martin, which makes the F-35 jet, additionally didn’t instantly touch upon Trump’s ambitions to promote the jets to India.
US international army gross sales like these of the F-35 are thought-about government-to-government offers the place the Pentagon acts as an middleman between the defence contractor and a international authorities.
India has agreed to purchase greater than $20bn of US defence merchandise since 2008.
Final yr, India agreed to purchase 31 MQ-9B SeaGuardian and SkyGuardian drones after deliberations that lasted greater than six years.
In keeping with the US Congressional Analysis Service, New Delhi is predicted to spend greater than $200bn over the following decade to modernise its army.
‘A lot harder negotiator’
Following his assembly with Modi, Trump praised the Indian prime minister, who he described as a “a lot harder negotiator” than himself.
Modi, in flip, described Trump as a “buddy” and stated he would undertake his personal model of the president’s well-known “Make America Nice Once more” tagline in India.
Past their “particular bond” – as described by Trump – the 2 leaders additionally have strategic causes to stay shut.
The US sees India as a foil to China’s rising energy, and each international locations are members of the Quad safety settlement alongside Japan and Australia.
India and China share a restive 3,488-kilometre (2,167-mile) border, the place tensions bubbled over right into a violent skirmish in 2020, ensuing within the deaths of greater than 20 troopers.
New Delhi additionally wants US weapons to finish its bold and dear plan to modernise its army over the following decade.
Whereas India is a longstanding buyer of the US defence trade, its prime provider has traditionally been Russia.
Moscow, nonetheless, is out of the image for the second resulting from its struggle with Ukraine and worldwide sanctions. The addition of the F-35 to India’s army could be a serious win for New Delhi, as solely a small group of nations akin to Israel, Japan, and NATO states are allowed to purchase them from the US.