The White House said Thursday that the historic meeting between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi would result in a number of significant military accords, including an unprecedented agreement on co-producing aircraft engines.
Prior to their high-level negotiations on Thursday, Modi and Biden will have a private discussion in the White House’s Oval Office.
Hours before the meeting between the two leaders, a senior administration official said, “The US-India defence partnership has been growing stronger over the years, but we’ve now entered the next generation defence partnership.”
The official said that three key results related defence partnerships are anticipated from the meeting, with the first one being a “unprecedented” jet engine for coproduction. A ground-breaking proposal by General Electric (GE) to jointly construct the F414 jet engines in India is being warmly received by the US and India.
A Memorandum of Understanding between GE and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and an export licence agreement have both been filed for congressional certification. The senior administration official praised the proposal as a “groundbreaking one” that would “enable greater transfer of US jet engine technology than ever before.”
The second item, according to the official, is reliable ship repair. “The United States Navy has established master ship repair agreements that are going to result in cost-effective and time-saving sustainment for US military operations across multiple theatres by allowing US Navy ships to undertake servicing and even major repair in an Indian shipyard,” the official said.
“One is already in place, and we are working on three others. The India-US Defence acceleration ecosystem, also known as Indus X, is then on the Defence Innovation Bridge, the source added. It is a network of corporate think tanks, private investment players, and university incubators that was launched on June 21.
According to the source, “it will facilitate shared innovation on defence technologies and speed up the integration of India’s emerging private sector defence industry with the US defence sector.” The official said, “This is genuinely exciting as we see our companies and startups collaborating in ways that are better for India and better for the US.”
