Technology, trade and defence are a prime focus for USA to make future investments in India
During his State visit to India, the United States (U.S.) Secretary of State – Mike Pompeo has said that U.S. wants to take the bilateral relations between the two nations to newer heights.
In a meeting with Prime Minister of India – Narendra Modi, Pompeo assured him of greater cooperation by increasing investments in India, generating more employment opportunities, data localisation, technological alliances, trade and defence collaborations. He even appreciated India’s move of ending ties with Iran and Venezuela for importing crude oil.
Speaking on the occasion, Pompeo said, “You made hard choices to cut off Iran oil. We know this has a cost. We will do everything to ensure you have crude supply.”
He further added, “India’s IT sector, it’s more than just a digital miracle — it’s a source of national pride. Can we work together as partners, with partners such as Japan, to keep India’s networks and 5G networks of the future safe and reliable. I’m confident that we can.”
Besides, India has communicated clearly to U.S. that it will give priority to its national interests and honour the earlier agreed commitments with other nations such as purchase of S-400 missile defence system from Russia.
Speaking about procuring missiles from Russia, Minister of External Affairs, India – Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, said, “We will do what is in our national interest. We have many relationships, and some have history.”
The other topics that were discussed included increased tariff on U.S. goods, rising tensions between Iran and U.S., the U.S – China trade war, terror based groups operating from Pakistan and greater cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region. Besides, both India and U.S. agreed to work collaboratively in areas such as energy, aviation and space.
For the records, India was granted Strategic Trade Authorization tier-1 status by the U.S. in 2018, allowing India license-free access to certain defence articles, as entitled to other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members.
Besides, Donald Trump has recently expressed his disappointment over Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), India increasing tariffs on 28 U.S. goods. The items impacted by the new tariffs include apples, almonds, pulses, pears, walnuts, lentils and tube and pipe fittings, screws bolts and rivets. Earlier, the list included 29 items, but later India decided to remove artemia, a kind of shrimp, from the list.
Taking to twitter, Trump tweeted, “I look forward to speaking with Prime Minister Modi about the fact that India, for years having put very high Tariffs against the United States, just recently increased the Tariffs even further. This is unacceptable and the Tariffs must be withdrawn!”
Talking about Trump’s tweet, Pompeo said that India and U.S. are great friends and like any friendship, they are bound to have differences. He also mentioned that U.S. seeks removal of trade barriers and greater access to Indian markets.
