India, US pledge transformative change across key pillars of cooperation
India and the United States (US) have set a goal for bilateral trade – “Mission 500” – to more than double total bilateral trade between the two countries to $500 billion by 2030
India and the United States (US) have pledged to catalyse opportunities for military partnership and accelerate commerce and technology for the 21st century to drive transformative change across key pillars of cooperation — defence, investment and trade, energy security, technology and innovation, multilateral cooperation, and people to people connection.
A note detailing the initiatives for accelerating cooperation after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met US President Donald Trump said a new 10-year framework for the US-India major defence partnership in the 21st century will be signed this year. The US would expand defence sales and co-production with India to strengthen interoperability and defence industrial cooperation.
The two countries will review International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to streamline defence trade, technology exchange and maintenance, spare supplies, and in-country repair and overhaul of US-provided defence systems. They will open negotiations this year for a Reciprocal Defence Procurement (RDP) agreement, accelerate defence technology cooperation across space, air defence, missile, maritime and undersea technologies
The US announced a review of its policy on releasing the fifth-generation fighters and undersea systems to India. An Autonomous Systems Industry Alliance (ASIA) for India-US cooperation in underwater domain awareness technologies will scale industry partnerships and production in the Indo-Pacific. The US has offered a few commercial co-production and co-development opportunities for UDA technologies. India is the first country the US defence industry has offered to work with on these sensitive technologies. Discussions were going on between concerned US companies and potential Indian partners. Some of the technologies offered include the Sea Picket autonomous surveillance system with sonar acoustic array, and Wave Glider unmanned surface vehicle systems. Negotiations were going on including between Liquid Robotics/Boeing and Sagar Defence Engineering for the co-production of 60 Wave Glider platforms in India.
The two countries have set a goal for bilateral trade – “Mission 500” – to more than double total bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030. The first tranche of a mutually beneficial, multi-sector Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) was expected by the 2025 fall. The two countries pledged to demonstrate a mutual commitment to address bilateral trade barriers and recognise Indian investments in the US.
The two countries will launch the US-India TRUST (Transforming the Relationship Utilizing Strategic Technology) initiative to catalyse government-to-government, academia, and private sector collaboration to promote the application of critical and emerging technologies in areas like defence, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum, biotechnology, energy, and space. A US-India Roadmap on Accelerating AI Infrastructure was expected by the end of the year. The US and India agreed to work together to enable industry partnerships and investments in next-generation data centers, cooperation on development, and access to compute and processors for AI. They are expected to launch INDUS Innovation, an innovation bridge modelled after the successful INDUS-X platform to advance US-India industry and academic partnerships and foster investments in space, energy, and other emerging technologies.
The two countries agreed to expand Indian manufacturing capacity, including in the US, for active pharmaceutical ingredients for critical medicines and launch the Strategic Mineral Recovery initiative to recover and process critical minerals including lithium, cobalt, and rare earths from heavy industries like aluminium, coal mining and oil and gas.
The two sides re-committed to the US-India Energy Security Partnership. The US said it supports India to join the International Energy Agency as a full member.
The two countries pledged to fully realise the US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement by moving forward with plans to work together to build US-designed nuclear reactors in India through large-scale localization and possible technology transfer and unlock plans to build large US-designed reactors and enable collaboration to develop, deploy and scale up nuclear power generation with advanced small modular reactors.
The two countries agreed to strengthen collaborations between the higher education institutions through efforts such as joint/dual degree and twinning programs, establishing joint Centres of Excellence, and setting up offshore campuses of premier educational institutions of the US in India and committed to streamlining avenues for legal mobility of students and professionals, and facilitating short-term tourist and business travel, while also addressing illegal immigration and human trafficking.
The US and India said they will strengthen law enforcement cooperation to take decisive action against organised crime syndicates, including narco-terrorists, human and arms traffickers as well as other elements who threaten public and diplomatic safety and security, and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of both nations
On multilateral cooperation, the two sides reaffirmed their commitment to Quad and Indo–Pacific and planned to convene partners from the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor and the I2U2 Group within the next six months to announce new initiatives in 2025. The two sides said they will launch the Indian Ocean Strategic Venture to advance coordinated investments in economic connectivity and commerce.
The two sides condemned terrorism and called out Pakistan to bring perpetrators of the 26/11 attacks to justice and ensure that its territory is not used to carry out cross-border terrorist attacks. The US announced that the extradition to India of the 26/11 attack accused Tahawwur Rana has been approved.
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