PM NARENDRA MODI USA VISIT MAJOR ACHIEVEMENTS

 1. Biden and Modi Announce Defense, Chips Deals at White House

Countries ink agreements involving GE, Micron, General Atomics, India seeking to increase its engagement on the global stage

US President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a series of defense and commercial deals designed to improve military and economic ties between their nations during Thursday’s state visit at the White House.

General Electric Co. plans to jointly manufacture F414 engines with state-owned Indian firm Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. for the Tejas light-combat aircraft, as part of an effort to improve defense- and technology-sharing as China becomes more assertive in the Indo-Pacific.

2. Joe Biden defends his calling China’s Xi Jinping a dictator as India’s Narendra Modi gets state visit

American president dismisses ‘any real consequence’ to critical remarks, saying ‘common democratic character’ unites Washington and New Delhi

Show of US-India partnership accompanied by slew of agreements spanning semiconductors, critical minerals, defence and WTO.

3. From Tesla to Apple, leading U.S. corporations are accelerating their push into India as an alternative production hub to China amid protracted tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New York on Tuesday. The electric vehicle maker is reportedly in talks with New Delhi to set up a factory in India, expanding a production network that spans the U.S., China, Germany and Mexico.

4. Biden’s Trade Challenge: Kicking the China Dependency Habit

Officials want to avoid trade deals whose rules boost China’s role in supply chains

The $53 billion Chips Act is the latest example of the federal government using its cash to remake an industry it sees as crucial to national security.

China has many sources of geopolitical leverage, from its military to its vast market. Potentially, the most potent and least appreciated is the choke-point position it has built in global supply chains.

President Biden has devoted a lot of his foreign policy to addressing that vulnerability, from cultivating closer ties to India, which aspires to become an alternative manufacturing base to China, to negotiating critical minerals deals with Europe

India-US relationship over the last 18 years has taken place in the shadow of China’s economic ascent and its subsequent revisionism. India has an unsettled border dispute with China, which makes for overlap of interests with the US. Across administrations in both countries, political leadership has shown the foresight to adapt to an emerging situation with a different playbook. It’s not an isolated example. Across the world countries are showing flexibility in adapting to an era of two economic giants locked in a strategic rivalry.

India itself brings a lot to table today. Four decades of brisk economic growth have put India within striking distance of being the third largest economy after the US and China. At the current rates of growth, India’s economic size should overtake Germany by 2027-28 and Japan by the end of the decade. Modi’s meetings in the US, which include CEOs, are a testament to the global interest in both accessing India’s growing market and also its supply capabilities. The India-US initiative on critical and emerging technologies (iCET) would have been inconceivable a few decades ago as we did not possess the capabilities to generate the interest.

India is at a sweet spot today both because of its own capabilities and the unique aspect of the current big power rivalry. Unlike the Cold War, today’s poles, the US and China, have intertwined economies. This will unravel to some extent. India, therefore, is ideally placed to grab economic opportunities coming out of this process. It’s the confluence of many interests between the two countries that makes for an alliance without formal trappings. It benefits both sides as India has the latitude to pursue its interests, some of which will benefit the US and its allies. Think, for example, of India’s burgeoning diesel and ATF exports to the EU in 2022-23 that cushioned the fallout of Russia sanctions there. That’s why a “swing state” like India is no less important than an ally.