US vice-president JD Vance is set to visit India on a four-day official tour, during which he will meet the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, and discuss the terms of a bilateral trade deal.
Mr Modi enjoys warm relations with Mr Vance’s boss Donald Trump, but the US president has also called India the “tariff king” and a “big abuser” and targeted the country with a blanket 26 per cent levy as part of his now-paused tariff programme.
Mr Vance is set to meet the Indian leader on 21 April in Delhi, where the pair are expected to hold discussions on economic, trade and geopolitical ties.
India’s foreign ministry welcomed the upcoming visit by Mr Vance, who will be accompanied by the second lady, Usha Vance, their children and other senior members of the US administration. Ms Vance is a daughter of Indian immigrants, who migrated to the US from the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
“The visit will provide an opportunity for both sides to review the progress in bilateral relations and the implementation of the outcomes of the India-US joint statement,” the ministry said. “The two sides will also exchange views on regional and global developments of mutual interest.”
Mr Vance is also expected to visit Jaipur and Agra, where he is likely to see the Taj Mahal with his family.
This marks Mr Vance’s first visit to India since taking office, at the helm of an important diplomatic mission on behalf of the Trump administration. The US sees India as an important strategic ally in combating the influence of China in the Asia-Pacific, and the visit coincides with a rapidly intensifying trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
In February, shortly after Mr Trump took office, India and the US agreed to work on the first phase of a trade deal to be concluded late this year with a view to reaching bilateral trade worth $500bn (£429bn) by 2030. The US is already India’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade valued at $190bn (£144bn) until recently.
India had pre-emptively cut tariffs on a number of categories of US imports even before Mr Trump announced his tariff regimen on 2 April, and the scope for wider-ranging cuts is expected to form part of the discussion during Mr Vance’s trip.
On Tuesday, India’s trade secretary announced that the country has decided to pursue a path of trade liberalisation with the US and that the terms of reference for the first part of the bilateral trade deal were set to be signed soon.
