New Delhi: US Vice President J D Vance’s visit to India takes dialogue between the two countries a step further, Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Tuesday as New Delhi looks to stitch an early deal with Washington that spares it from President Donald Trump’s additional tariff hikes.
Vance began a four-day tour of India on Monday as the two nations engage in talks to nail a bilateral trade agreement that would avoid reciprocal tariffs. A 26 per cent ‘reciprocal’ tariff on Indian exports to the US is currently on a 90-day pause, set to expire on July 8. However, like other countries, India is presently subject to a 10 per cent tariff under the existing policy.
In an interview with PTI, Scindia said India and the US represent “tremendous markets”, adding that closer cooperation between the two nations is not only mutually beneficial but also in the broader interest of the world.
“Vice President of the United States coming to India is a very welcome and a very important step. I think it takes that level of dialogue and communication one step further,” said Scindia, who is the Minister for Communications as well as Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Trump share a warm personal rapport, but the US president has repeatedly criticised India’s high tariffs, labelling it a “tariff king” and a “big abuser” of trade ties.
The US is India’s largest trading partner and the biggest buyer of its exports. New Delhi has already cut tariffs on a number of goods in the past few months and may consider doing so on more products to help cut a bilateral trade deal.
India and the US are making progress in negotiating a bilateral trade deal, the countries had said after a meeting between Modi and Vance in Delhi on Monday.
Citing Modi’s visit to the US and his meeting with President Trump at the White House two months ago, as well as his meeting with Vance earlier, Scindia underlined the bond and synergies between the two nations.
“Our prime minister recently visited the United States, met with President Trump…he met with Vice President J D Vance…and I think this will go further in terms of taking forward our dialogues, not only in terms of our trade talks and other issues but also in terms of investment, also in terms of cooperation on many other fronts, be it defence, information technology, biotech, innovation, AI, and across the board,” the minister said.
India and the US are the world’s largest and the oldest democracies.
“They both present tremendous markets. We also have a huge added, very important form of ‘ambassadorships’ and that is our ‘Pravasi Bhartiya’ who are based in the US and they have created a tremendous amount of goodwill for Bharat in the United States and I think both these countries coming closer together, working closer together, is at the end of the day, in the interest of the world…in the political space, in the business space, even in the social sector space and even in the space with Sunita Williams,” he said.
Vance, accompanied by Indian-origin Second Lady Usha Chilukuri, and their three children — sons Ewan, Vivek and daughter Mirabel, landed in Delhi on Monday on a largely personal four-day visit to India that comes amid growing global tensions over the US tariff.
India and the US said on Monday that they made “significant progress” in negotiations for a mutually beneficial bilateral trade pact as PM Modi and US Vice President Vance held wide-ranging talks focusing on boosting cooperation in areas of defence, energy and strategic technologies.
The White House said Vance and Modi welcomed “significant progress” in the negotiations for the trade pact and formally announced the “finalisation of the terms of reference” for the negotiations, laying down a roadmap for further discussions about economic priorities.
