President Obama used a day of pageantry in New Delhi Monday to praise his own administration’s trade with India and pledge $4 billion in trade and investment commitments to the world’s largest democracy. After attending a patriotic holiday commemoration, Obama hopes to close out his historic trip by bolstering U.S.-Indian economic ties.
“Today, I’m proud to announce additional steps — a series of U.S. initiatives that will generate more than $4 billion in trade and investment with India and support thousands of jobs in both of our countries,” he said.
Earlier Monday, Obama became the first U.S. president to attend India’s annual Republic Day parade, designed to showcase the nation’s military might. Obama accepted the surprise invitation last year from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
As part of the trade announcement, Obama said the Export-Import Bank would commit up to $1 billion to finance U.S. exports to India, with another $1 billion going to support small and medium businesses and $2 billion for Indian renewable energy sources.
Yet Obama said the world’s two most populous democracies need to conduct even more business together moving forward.
“We all know that the U.S.-India economic relationship is also defined by so much untapped potential,” he said. “Of all America’s imports from the world, about 2 percent come from India. Of all of America’s exports to the world, just over 1 percent go to India — 1 percent to over a billion people.”
Those figures are dwarfed by the amount of trade between the U.S. and China, Obama lamented.
“We do about $100 billion a year in trade with India, which is a great improvement since I took office,” he said. “But we do about $560 billion a year with China. That gives you some sense of the potential both for the kind of growth that India might unleash, and the potential for greater trade between our two countries.”
Obama is cutting short his trip to India to travel Tuesday to Saudi Arabia to pay his respects to new Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz.
