Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits the United States this week with an eye toward squeezing some concessions out of the U.S., after he gave President Obama a big win by agreeing to sign the Paris climate agreement, and also agreed to an agreement to limit trafficking in wildlife.
For Modi the trip itself is a vindication. He will address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, a feat that two years ago would have been impossible because the Hindu nationalist had been barred from entering the U.S. since 2005.
The State Department had denied his visa application since then because of religious-based violence in Gujarat during his tenure as chief minister of that state.
When Modi assumed power, U.S.-India relations were at a particularly low point. Disagreements over trade policy, market access and the New York arrest of an Indian diplomat had seriously soured the relationship.
Now Obama and Modi are convening their third official summit in two years, and most experts credit both men with the remarkable turnaround. For Obama, convincing Modi to sign the climate agreement was a major foreign policy coup. Last year’s Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia Pacific and Indian Ocean Region helped solidify Obama’s “pivot to Asia” while enhancing India’s role as major player in regional security.
The agreement “enshrined our mutual commitment to safeguarding maritime security and ensuring freedom of navigation and over-flight throughout the region, including in the South China Sea,” the State Department’s Nisha Desai Biswal told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month during a hearing examining the U.S.’s relationship with India.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter and his counterpart outlined a defense logistics agreement during Carter’s trip to New Delhi in April. Signing the agreement, which allows the two militaries to coordinate operations and exercises, could be one concrete development to come out of Modi’s trip.
While Obama undoubtedly will prod Modi to ratify the Paris climate deal, Modi can also be expected to push Obama to take the next step on nuclear cooperation.
The U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Agreement of 2008 opened the subcontinent to nuclear commerce with U.S. businesses. Westinghouse Electric is in negotiations with Delhi to seal a contract to build six nuclear reactors and could announce its finalization during Modi’s visit.
Modi also wants the U.S. to make a “full-court press” for its admission to the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Richard Rosso said during a Friday call previewing Modi’s trip.
Obama already supported India’s entry in the joint statement he and Modi issued after their first meeting in September 2014. India’s admittance would not only achieve a Modi priority but it would also help Obama advance his nuclear non-proliferation goals.
The U.S. side, meanwhile, can be expected to play up the climate and wildlife deals it already struck with India.
The trafficking in wildlife agreement “will allow the United States and India to strengthen capacity for wildlife conservation and management in India, including efforts to protect critical habitat, develop scientific information in support of conservation programs, build public awareness, stabilize and increase populations of threatened and endangered species, strengthen law enforcement capacity, and combat illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife products,” the State Department stated in announcing the memo on Thursday.
Obama has made wildlife conservation a major foreign policy goal in his late-term agenda.
