Context: Recently, the Indian Prime Minister and the US President held a bilateral meeting at the White House, US, during the visit by the Indian PM. Here are the key highlights from the joint statement issued after their meeting.
Relevance of the Topic: Mains: Evolving India-US relations.
Background of India-US relations in the past few years:
1. Trump 1.0 tenure:
- India and US shared a fair relation, enhancing the engagement with new geopolitical developments like:
- Indo-Pacific: The first tenure of Donald Trump promoted the new term Indo-Pacific emphasising India's importance in the region. Also, the evolution of the term challenges the China and Russia Asia-Pacific dominance.
- QUAD: Quad, a group of India, US, Japan and Australia witnessed the revival during Trump's first tenure.
- COMCASA: India-US signed COMCASA (Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement) in 2018 to enhance the intelligence and communication channel sharing fostering deeper military engagement.
- BECA: India signed the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) with the US in 2020 to deepen Indo-US military cooperation.
- Chabahar Port waiver: India enjoyed a concession with respect to the engagement with Iran's Chabahar Port development.
- Vaccine IPR waiver: India was able to gain the IPR waiver on CoVID-19 vaccine during the tenure of Donald Trump.
2. Biden’s Tenure:
- India and the US relations developed with the:
- US joining the International Solar Alliance
- India joining Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF)
- Deepening India-NASA human space flight Gaganyan engagement
- However, the relations were restrained due to following:
- Deepening engagement with Pakistan: The regime change in the Pakistan and US engagement with the new Shahbaz Sharif’s government by reviving the USAID hampered the trust between US and India.
- Threatening sanctions: The US under Biden threatened India with the sanctions to restrain the India-Russia trade in the backdrop of Russia-Ukraine conflict.
- In January 2025, the US imposed sanctions on Indian firms that were directly or indirectly involved with the trade with Russia.
- Reducing emphasis on QUAD: The Biden administration kept the QUAD and associated developments in the cold box.
- In 2023, Australia cancelled the QUAD meeting after Biden cancelled his visit for the meeting.
Read More: Contemporary Relations INDIA - USA
Dynamics in Trump 2.0 tenure
- India and the US may expect challenges in domains like immigration and deportation; trade and tariffs; climate change; de-dollarisation; and relations with external functionaries.