United States President Donald Trump will be coming to India later this month on a two-day visit. This would be Trump’s maiden trip to India as the President of the United States. White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in Washington yesterday that the President and First Lady Melania Trump will travel to New Delhi and Ahmedabad during the visit scheduled on 24th and 25th February.
She said that during a phone call over the weekend, President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have agreed that the trip would further strengthen the India-US strategic partnership and highlight the strong and enduring bonds between the American and Indian people.
President Trump’s trip to India is significant in view of the ongoing bilateral trade conflicts and various other issues including maintaining international global order in Indo-Pacific.
Ahead of the visit, the Trump Administration has proposed 1.5 billion US dollars in budgetary allocation for 2021 fiscal for the crucial Indo-Pacific region. It said that the provision was part of its efforts to ensure that the region remains free, open and independent of malign Chinese influence.
White House said, in its budgetary proposal for the financial year 2021 that the future of the Indo-Pacific region, which contains roughly half the world’s population and many of the fastest-growing economies, is critical to US security and long-term economic interests.
According to the Pentagon, the Department of Defence (DoD) is strengthening and evolving US partnerships in the Indo-Pacific into a security architecture that helps uphold a free and open order. It said that the department is expanding military-to-military cooperation and improving interoperability with India, including establishment of a new tri-service amphibious exercise TIGER TRIUMPH. Mr Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama had travelled to India twice, in 2010 and 2015.
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