Vance’s Visit to India Sparks Hopes for Trade Deal Amid Trump Tariff Pause

by · NY Times

It’s All Sunshine as the Vance Family Arrives in India

Those tariff clouds? Indians wish them away as they welcome Vice President JD Vance for a four-day visit.

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Vice President JD Vance, his wife, Usha Vance, and their children at the Akshardham temple in New Delhi on Monday.
Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

By Anupreeta Das and Pragati K.B.

Reporting from New Delhi

India is searching for any sign that it will be able to dodge the steep tariffs threatened by the Trump administration as it rushes to reorder global trade.

So on Monday, as Vice President JD Vance began a four-day visit, Indians closely examined the images that emerged for any clues — and many liked what they saw.

First there were Mr. Vance’s three young children, dressed in Indian attire as they stepped one by one from the airplane. Then there was the family photo outside a marble-and-sandstone temple, with Mr. Vance, his Indian American wife, Usha Vance, and their children draped in garlands. Capping it all was Mr. Vance’s warm embrace of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who presented the Vance children with peacock feathers.

Given the fickleness of Mr. Vance’s boss, President Trump, it is impossible to know whether these gauzy images indicate that the Trump administration is ready to strike a deal.

But senior Indian officials and some analysts took Mr. Vance’s presence in India as a sign that the United States intended to continue working toward the bilateral trade agreement outlined by Mr. Trump and Mr. Modi when the Indian leader visited Washington in February.

“This visit is very significant, coming at a time when there is unease internationally about what the Trump administration has been doing to friendly countries, including India,” said Happymon Jacob, an associate professor of diplomacy and disarmament at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “This is a visit to reassure India that the relationship is not going to completely go astray.”

In recent years, India has sought to make its ties with the United States a pillar of its foreign policy strategy, as the American government looked to India to help counter a rising China.

But India has found itself on uncertain ground with Mr. Trump back in office. The president has both praised Mr. Modi’s leadership and harangued the Indian government for high tariffs that make it tough for U.S. companies to enter the market.

Mr. Trump has called India an “abuser” of tariffs and a “tariff king.” Before he put a 90-day pause on his so-called reciprocal tariffs this month, Indian exports to the United States were facing levies of 27 percent — a number calculated on the basis of the size of America’s trade deficit with India.

Mr. Vance, too, has been known to direct harsh words at American allies, as he did on his visit to Europe in February, his first foreign trip as vice president.

But when he arrived in New Delhi on Monday morning — after visiting Pope Francis at the Vatican in the final hours before the pontiff’s death — it was all smiles on both sides.

On Monday evening, Mr. Vance held talks with Mr. Modi at the prime minister’s residence, followed by a dinner for the Vance family and senior officials.

The leaders “welcomed the significant progress” in the negotiations toward a “mutually beneficial” trade deal, according to a statement from Mr. Modi’s office. Mr. Vance’s office released a similar statement.

He and his family are taking time between official engagements to go sightseeing. Not long after reaching Delhi, they visited the Akshardham temple and posed outside in the 100-degree weather. The family will visit the Amer Fort in Jaipur and the Taj Mahal in Agra later this week.

On Tuesday, while in Jaipur, Mr. Vance is expected to make a speech about Indian-U.S. business ties.

As it has pursued negotiations with the United States, its largest trading partner and biggest export market, India has taken an accommodating stance, slashing duties on some imports of American goods.

In February, when Mr. Modi and Mr. Trump met in Washington, they sketched out a trade agreement that would aim for $500 billion in bilateral trade by 2030 — more than double the current amount.

The outline contained various give-and-takes. The United States would sell and co-produce more defense equipment that India needs to patrol its borders. India would buy more U.S. crude oil and liquefied natural gas and tackle illegal immigration more forcefully. And America would continue its support for maintaining security in the Indo-Pacific region.

A cooperation agreement involving Japan, Australia, India and the United States, known as the Quad, is especially important to India, which has long worried about China’s influence in the region, including over vital waterways. Mr. Trump is expected to visit India in the fall to attend a Quad summit.

With Mr. Vance’s visit expected to largely focus on bilateral trade, it was unclear whether some of the other troubles between India and the United States — on foreign student visas, illegal immigration and the deportation of Indian nationals — would come up.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association said last week that Indian students in the United States, more than any other foreign student group, had been targeted for visa revocations by the Trump administration. The administration has voided hundreds of student visas across the United States as it restricts immigration and some speech on campuses.

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