Trans-Pacific View | Diplomacy | South Asia

Are India-US Ties Really Back on Track?

Despite high-level meetings and a Modi-Trump phone call in March, the ground reality reveals that a reset in relations remains elusive.

India’s Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar talks to US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau at the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi, India, March 5, 2026.

March witnessed a flurry of visits by high-level officials from Washington to New Delhi, beginning with Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs S. Paul Kapur’s visit on March 1. More recently, Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby was in New Delhi from March 23 to March 26, when he met with India’s Minister for External Affairs S Jaishankar and Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri.

Colby’s visit came a few days after Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau visited New Delhi. His remarks at the Raisina Dialogue — India’s flagship conference on geopolitics and geostrategy, co-organized by the Observer Research Foundation and the Ministry of External Affairs — that Washington will not “make the same mistakes with India” as it did with “China 20 years ago,” referring to trade with India, generated significant domestic backlash in India. In contrast, Colby’s remarks were warm — even friendly; he described New Delhi as “not merely” a “key partner,” but an “essential one in ensuring long-term favourable balance of power in Asia.”

Other noteworthy diplomatic engagements between India and the United States in March included a phone call between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the first since the outbreak of hostilities with Iran, where they exchanged views on the ongoing situation in West Asia. This was followed by Trump describing Modi and himself as “two people that get things done” while expressing confidence that India-U.S. ties “will be even stronger going forward.”

Meanwhile, India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal met with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on the sidelines of the WTO Ministerial Conference in Cameroon, where they discussed “next steps” in the Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) negotiations.

Do these visits indicate renewed momentum in bilateral relations? Have there been any tangible developments from these visits? The answer is a bit of a mixed bag.

On the defense front, post Colby’s visit, while India and the U.S. signed a 4.13 billion rupee (roughly $43 million) contract with U.S. firm Boeing India Defense Private Limited for depot-level inspection of the Indian Navy’s P-8 aircraft, no mention was made about the impending U.S. sale of six P8-I Poseidon multi-mission maritime aircraft, following India’s Defense Acquisition Council (DAC)’s approval last month. Estimated at $4 billion, this deal — first approved by the DAC in November 2019 (at $2.42 billion) — has witnessed much turbulence, including being temporarily suspended in August 2025, after Trump announced sanctions on India. Neither was any mention made of the long-pending deal between India’s Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and the U.S. firm General Electric to........

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