How India-US ties progressed under the Joe Biden presidency

Biden: An old friend of India

President Biden’s advocacy of stronger ties between the two countries far predates his entry into the Oval Office.

In 2006, three years before he became Vice President to President Barack Obama, Biden articulated his vision for the future of India-US relations. “My dream is that in 2020, the two closest nations in the world will be India and the United States,” he said.

In 2008, then Senator Biden worked with both Democrats and Republicans to get the landmark India-US nuclear deal approved in the US Congress. This was despite the initial reservations of soon-to-be President Obama on the matter.

As Vice President, Biden continued working towards furthering India-US ties. He visited India with his wife Jill in 2013, and met, among others, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Vice President Hamid Ansari.

In August 2020, as the Democratic Presidential nominee, Biden said that he would stand with India in confronting various threats along its borders.

His personal affinity to India aside, President Biden inherited a strong India-US relationship from his predecessor Donald Trump. The former president had, for the very first time, framed China as a strategic rival and adversary to the US, and thus aligned Washington and New Delhi’s positions. In this regard, Biden carried Trump’s legacy forward.

Trump revived the Quad grouping comprising India, the US, Australia, and Japan in 2017. In 2021, Biden elevated the Quad to the leaders’ level, the highest in international diplomacy. He hosted the first Quad leaders’ summit in March that year, less than two months after he became president.

Since then, Biden and PM Modi have met six times at the leaders’ level, including four times in person. On the bilateral front, the two have interacted at least 10 times, including twice virtually.

US-India technology cooperation

New Delhi and Washington realised in the post-pandemic world that they needed to frame their ties in durable terms. Both countries wanted to de-risk themselves from future China-related disruptions, and become a part of a resilient global supply chain.

India also wished to be part of the US-led tech ecosystem. No major country in the post-World War II era has succeeded without technogical support from Washington — from Japan and Germany in the War’s immediate aftermath to Singapore and Taiwan more recently. Even the rise of China, to some extent, was aided by support from the US.

Biden saw the opportunity in including India into the US tech ecosystem. Washington and New Delhi began working to this end in 2022. On January 31, 2023, the two National Security Advisers launched the Initiative for Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) in Washington to facilitate strategic technology collaborations in critical and emerging technologies, and enable co-development and co-production in the tech sphere. iCET also looked to connect the two countries’ respective innovation ecosystems, especially in AI, quantum, telecom, space, biotech, semiconductors, and emerging defence technologies.

After three NSA-level meetings — the most recent one taking place between NSA Ajit Doval and his US counterpart Jake Sullivan in June 2024 — the outcomes of iCET are now visible.

PM Modi’s recent visit saw him sign an agreement for setting up a semiconductor fabrication plant in India, which would make chips for use in “national security, next generation telecommunications and green energy applications”. Both Biden and Modi hailed the “watershed arrangement” in which the US military has agreed to a partnership with India on highly valued technology.

The fab, focused on “advanced sensing, communication and power electronics”, will be enabled by support from the India Semiconductor Mission as well as a strategic technology partnership between Bharat Semi, 3rdiTech, and the US Space Force, the joint statement said. “It will be established with the objective of manufacturing infrared, gallium nitride and silicon carbide semiconductors,” it said.

Drawing a parallel with the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, sources said the fab titled Shakti (or ‘power’) would not only be the first technology partnership between Indian businesses and the US Space Force, but also a first in the Quad. Officials have said that this marks a “glass-ceiling broken” in tech diplomacy, by “raising the game and going into true chip fabrication, the holy grail of semiconductors”, not just testing and assembly, as was the case in previous India-US arrangements.

Beyond the fab, India and the US are working on a broad range technology partnerships, from joint research conducted by NASA and ISRO on the International Space Station, to a pact for critical minerals supply chains and emerging digital technologies in Asia and Africa. There has also been progress regarding a deal for 31 remotely piloted aircraft which India would acquire from the US.

Some headwinds in ties

That said, the headwinds in India-US ties cannot be ignored. Most notably, in recent months, the alleged assassination plot against US-based pro-Khalistan separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun has been a thorny issue.

Two important developments took place days before PM Modi’s visit to the US.

* Last week, a US court issued summons to NSA Doval, among others, after Pannun filed a civil suit seeking damages for the alleged assassination plot. India has described the allegations “completely unwarranted and unsubstantiated imputations”. However, Doval was nonetheless absent from India’s official delegation this time around. Sources said the Jammu & Kashmir elections and domestic commitments had kept the NSA from travelling to the US.

* The fact that a group of Sikh activists and pro-Khalistan separatists visited the White House on the eve of PM Modi’s US visit was also a signal to New Delhi. Local media in Delaware reported that pro-Khalistan protesters could be seen along the route of the Prime Minister’s motorcade.

India has to address this issue to remove any misgivings in Washington about New Delhi’s democratic credentials. But South Block believes that in the larger scheme of things, the two countries’ strategic alignment vis-à-vis China means that such challenges are only minor wrinkles to be ironed out.

With Biden leaving office early next year, New Delhi will be keenly watching the US elections in November to see who carries forward his legacy — his Vice President and current Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, or his predecessor and Republican nominee Donald Trump.