As President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meet here on Friday to infuse new life into a relationship that is perceived to have lost momentum, there is a strong expectation that the two sides will come up with substantive agreements on defence cooperation and implementation of the civil nuclear deal.
Corporate America has sought to upstage the summit meeting by mobilising lawmakers and Governors in a bid to pressure Obama to strongly raise the issue of India’s alleged protectionism and discrimination against US businesses.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said that President Obama “very much looks forward to the meeting” and having a discussion on all of the issues and shared objectives that the United States and India have.
Ahead of the Obama-Singh meeting, which will be the third bilateral summit session between them in the last four years, Secretary of State John Kerry and External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid held parleys on key bilateral matters in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session.
In a reflection of the mounting American concern on the trade front, the US side has suggested some “specific” actions on economic reforms to expand bilateral trade.
“They (Kerry and Khurshid) did have some conversations about specific steps, yes,” a senior State Department official told reporters later, but declined to go into details. “The Secretary said that if India can march forward and embrace reforms, they can see real movement on their economy,” the official said, noting Kerry was “just encouraging steps that could be taken”.
Khurshid flagged India’s acute concerns over the restrictions sought to be placed on the movement of Indian professionals coming to the US on H-1B visas. Indian IT industry has been agitated by provisions in the American immigration reform legislation that target Indian firms operating in the US.
Although there is no official confirmation yet, the one major announcement is expected to be the signing of “Pre Early Works Agreement” between the Nuclear Power Corporation of India limited and the US firm, Westinghouse, for the proposed nuclear plant at Chayya-Mithivirdi in Gujarat.
On the defence side, attention is focused on new deals that will go beyond a buyer-seller relationship to one of joint partnership in design, development and production of defence equipment. India has procured US military equipment worth over $10 billion since 2003.
During his recent visit to New Delhi, US Deputy Secretary of Defence Ashton B Carter made offers relating to co-production and co-development of key items, including the next version of the Javelin anti-tank missile now built by Raytheon Co and lockheed Martin Corp.
Corporate groups which have formed the “Alliance for Free Trade with India” (AFTI) announced on Thursday that a bipartisan group of governors of 14 US States have written a joint letter to President Obama, urging him to raise with Prime Minister Singh “concerns about India’s deteriorating trade environment, disregard for intellectual property rights, and to press for comprehensive solutions”.