New York: The Donald Trump administration is prioritising relations with India and recognises that the country has the potential to transform the Indo-Pacific region and is an “important partner” when it comes to competing effectively with China, a former White House official has said. These remarks were made by Lisa Curtis ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the White House for a bilateral meeting with President Trump on Thursday.
She has served in President Donald Trump’s first administration as the senior director for South and Central Asia in the National Security Council between 2017 and 2021. In an online press briefing on Tuesday hosted by Washington DC-based think tank The Centre for a New American Security (CNAS) on the eve of Modi’s visit, Curtis said, “Clearly, the Trump administration is prioritising relations with India.”
“They recognise that India is an important emerging global power and really has the potential to transform the Indo-Pacific region and the world,” Curtis, Senior Fellow and Director of the Indo-Pacific Security Programme at the think tank, said. Modi will be the fourth foreign leader to visit Trump in the weeks after the American leader’s inauguration as the 47th President of the US.
Within less than a month of the start of Trump’s second term in the White House, he has hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
Curtis added that it is “quite notable that India is being given such close attention with everything that is happening domestically here under the new Trump administration.” “And of course, the Indian government has also done its groundwork and has already taken positive steps to set a tone, a good tone for Thursday’s meeting,” she said.
She also said the Quad is “something very important to the Trump administration.” “We’ve already seen a meeting of the Quad foreign ministers, literally on the first day of the Trump administration. So that shows the importance that the Trump administration attaches to India and its role in the Quad,” she said.
On January 21, a day after Trump’s inauguration, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had a bilateral and Quad meeting. Rubio met Jaishankar as well as other foreign ministers of the Quad grouping Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Japanese Foreign Minister Iwaya Takeshi at the State Department on January 21, the first Quad ministerial meeting of the Trump administration’s second term.
“So that’s something that draws them together, the idea of the US and India working together to preserve a free and open Indo-Pacific, to make sure that other countries have choices beyond China, to reduce dependencies on China, to diversify supply chains. All of this is important to both countries, and this is where their interests converge. So I expect that will be some of the glue that brings the US and India together despite this trade friction,” she said.
With the Trump-Modi meeting coming against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s announcements and focus on trade and tariffs, Curtis said it will be necessary for the two leaders “to try to reach a trade deal.” “But if we look back at the first Trump administration, despite a great deal of effort, they never did conclude a trade agreement. Still, the trade friction did not overwhelm the overall strategic partnership. And by the time Trump left office, I think he had left the US-India relationship in a very good place,” she said.
Curtis, however, added that this time around, “we’re going to see less patience from President Trump on the trade issues, the expectations will be higher of India to make concessions to lower tariffs. And so we’ve yet to see whether India will be able to do that.” “And I think you know this means that the trade issue could be more of an irritant this time around than it was during the first Trump administration.”
In response to a question on whether Trump is looking to draw India more closely to the US to counter China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific, Curtis said that even though much of the talk will be on the bilateral relationship, trade, immigration, defence purchases, the “China thread will weave through the meeting.”
“This is an underpinning theme to this meeting,” she said adding that “Trump’s advisors are very clear that India is an important partner when it comes to competing effectively with China” and pushing back against Chinese aggression.
“So I think that will be an underlying theme…We’ll have to see what the joint statement says. It’s unlikely to mention China specifically, but that will be the underlying theme of their strategic cooperation in the Indo-Pacific,” whether it is on technology, maritime security issues or defence relationships.
“The US-India relationship, when it comes to defence, is very important for India in terms of dealing with the threat from China along their disputed border. And we saw that in 2020 when you had an India-China border crisis, and the US really stepped up its intelligence support, provided military gear and provided a great deal of diplomatic support to India during that time of crisis,” she said.
Ahead of the visit, Head – Americas, VFS Global Amit Kumar Sharma said that the US-India relationship is poised for unprecedented growth, with increased travel expected across business, trade, leisure, and spiritual sectors.
“Businesses are eager to partner, driven by a shared ambition for sustainable growth. This is the outcome of consistent, strategic engagement at the highest levels of government and industry,” he said.
He further said that Modi’s visit is a “highly anticipated milestone in these joint efforts by businesses, organizations, and governments alike. Looking ahead, we can anticipate an even more dynamic US-India corridor in 2025 and beyond.”
