Reuters reported that on February 13, US President Donald Trump announced that the US will increase the sale of military weapons to India from 2025, including F-35 fighter jets.
Speaking at a joint press conference after meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mr. Trump said that the two countries have reached an agreement in which India will import more oil and gas from the US to narrow the bilateral trade deficit.
Trump also stressed that Washington and New Delhi will work together to deal with the threat from extreme Islamic terrorism.
However, Trump did not give a specific timeline. According to Reuters, foreign military deals, especially those with advanced technology such as the F-35 stealth fighter, often take years to complete.
Since 2008, India has agreed to buy more than $20 billion in weapons from the US. The most recent deal came last year, when New Dehli decided to buy 31 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), including two models MQ-9B Sea Guardian and SkyGuardian after more than six years of negotiations.
According to the US Congress Research Agency (CRS), India is expected to spend $200 billion in the next decade to modernize the military.
India's Permanent Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Vikram Misri said that New Delhi has a strict process for purchasing foreign weapons, including requests for proposals from manufacturers and thorough assessments. Mr. Misri noted that India is currently only considering President Trump's statement regarding the F-35 fighter jet as a proposal.
According to Reuters, India is considered the world's largest arms importer and Russia used to be the country's main arms supplier, Moscow's fighter jets play a particularly important role for New Dehli's air force.
However, India is tending to look for other suppliers, especially from the West in the context of Russia's export capacity being partly affected by the conflict in Ukraine.
On February 11, Russian and Indian officials revealed that Moscow had proposed producing a fifth-generation Sukhoi Su-57 stealth fighter in India to supply the country's air force, in an effort to maintain close defense ties with New Delhi.
