India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi characterizes his relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump as akin to one between good friends. That Modi’s meeting with Trump came within three weeks of the start of the latter’s second presidency signals the priority that both leaders attach to the India-U.S. relationship.

In summit-level talks on February 13, the two leaders reviewed the gamut of India-U.S. ties, including the Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership, security cooperation, defense, trade and economic engagement, technology, energy security, people-to-people linkages, and regional and global issues of concern.

To advance defense ties, Trump and Modi announced that they would renew this year for another 1 years the Framework for the India-U.S. Major Defense Partnership in the 21st Century. First signed in 1995 and renewed every decade since, the agreement is now up for renewal again in 2025.

The Defense Framework Agreement, as it is referred to, sets out the strategic context of the relationship. When it was being renewed for the first time in 2005, it was regarded with deep concern in Beijing. That year, in the so-called Special Representatives dialogue, in which border talks were being pursued by senior Indian and Chinese negotiators, China made its largest-ever border concession to India: It signed a document listing out the Political Parameters and Guiding Principles that would govern an eventual border settlement. It is believed that the India-U.S. Defense Framework Agreement, signed just months earlier, caused a rattled Beijing to make an important concession that strengthened India’s claim on the ownership of Tawang, a strategically vital town in India’s Arunachal Pradesh state that both India and China claim.

U.S. Defense Sales to India

From no defense sales at all at the turn of the millennium, Washington has sold New Delhi close to $20 billion worth of sophisticated defense equipment over the last 20 years, making it India’s largest defense supplier. Modi and Trump welcomed the integration of........

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