US promises smoother trade with India as Jake Sullivan visits Delhi

US National Security Adviser is visiting Delhi to finish preparations for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's four-day visit to Washington

Jake Sullivan visited Delhi on Tuesday. Reuters

The US is planning to remove obstacles to allow for easier trade with India, especially in the areas of defence and technology, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday.

Mr Sullivan is visiting Delhi to finish preparations for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's four-day visit to Washington, which will begin on June 22.

He met the Prime Minister to discuss the trip, which will be his sixth since taking office in 2014. A statement from the Prime Minister's office said Mr Sullivan had told Mr Modi that US President Joe Biden “looked forward to welcoming” him.

“A number of the deliverables at the visit are not just bullet points on a page,” Mr Sullivan told a meeting of business and industry professionals in New Delhi.

“They are fundamentally designed to remove those obstacles in defence trade, in high-tech trade, in investment in each of our countries, in taking away obstacles that have stood in the way of our scientists and researchers.”

Mr Sullivan's visit comes a week after US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin made a similar trip, meeting his counterpart Rajnath Singh.

He is expected to discuss bilateral co-operation including a $2.7 billion semiconductor chip-making facility in India by Idaho-based Micron Technology, the sharing of high-performance quantum computing technology and manufacturing US aircraft engines in India, media reports said.

Mr Modi’s government has been aspiring to make India a chip manufacturing hub and is looking for major makers to come to India at a time when its arch-rival China is racing to fill that regional role.

India currently imports about 80 per cent of its required semiconductors.

Mr Sullivan also held talks with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval. He is scheduled to meet Mr Doval again on Wednesday.

A statement from the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Mr Sullivan and Mr Doval “encouraged stakeholders on both sides to strive for technology value-chain partnerships that would lead to co-development and co-production of high technology products and services in both countries”.

He will also meet Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar during his two-day visit.

The US official is also expected to discuss the situation in the Asia-Pacific region, after a Chinese warship made a deliberate pass across the bow of an American guided-missile destroyer in the South China Sea.

The US and its allies, including India, have been competing against China’s growing influence in the region, with both nations boosting their military activity and arms build-up in the Asia-Pacific region.

Agencies contributed to this report