The recently announced interim trade deal framework between the United States and India is bound to garner a lot of traction for at least a week from now. However, in the past four months alone, there have been several substantial developments in India-US relations across various sectors, including defense, tech cooperation, and the critical mineral supply chain that warrant attention to truly grasp the scope of this deepening India-US strategic partnership.
Why ‘four months’? Because the Author had published an article four months ago, on October 3rd, 2025, wherein he had stated that “a compromise between India and the US could take the form of a tacit understanding, wherein the former agrees to gradually bring down its purchase of Russian crude oil through the first half of 2026 in return for the US agreeing to lower its tariffs on Indian goods.”
On February 2nd, 2026, the US President Donald Trump, in order to once again showcase his friendship with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, shared an old cover of India Today magazine in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, which featured him alongside Prime Minister Modi and billed them together as ‘The Mover & The Shaker’. This gave rise to speculations that announcement about a trade deal could be imminent.
And, sure enough, shortly thereafter on the same day, President Trump announced that he had a call with Prime Minister Modi wherein the two leaders agreed to a trade deal between their respective countries, resulting in the reduction of their tariffs and non-tariff barriers on each others exports.
“Effective immediately, we agreed to a Trade Deal between the United States and India, whereby the United States will charge a reduced Reciprocal Tariff, lowering from 25% to 18%. They (Indians) will likewise move forward to reduce their Tariffs and Non-Tariff Barriers against the United States, to ZERO,” said Trump in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Soon thereafter, Prime Minister Modi also confirmed the reduction of the US’ tariff on Indian products as agreed upon in a call with Trump, via a post on the social media platform X.
“Wonderful to speak with my dear friend President Trump today. Delighted that Made in India products will now have a reduced tariff of 18%. Big thanks to President Trump on behalf of the 1.4 billion people of India for this wonderful announcement,” said Modi.
“When two large economies and the world’s largest democracies work together, it benefits our people and unlocks immense opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation,” he further said.
On February 7th, India and the US issued a joint statement outlining the interim trade framework between the countries, making all of this official. Now, the purpose of this article is not to discuss the trade deal itself cause that discussion is being currently done by several media outlets and expert.
So, moving on, let us get back to Trump’s Truth Social post on February 2nd, in which he also said that India “agreed to stop buying Russian oil, and to buy much more from the United States, and potentially, from Venezuela.”
Of course, India has not entirely stopped buying Russian oil, as doing so will only drive up the global oil prices by suddenly increasing the demand for alternative supply, however, it has been quietly reducing its purchase of Russian oil since July 2025.
For instance, Russian crude imports to India fell to around 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in January 2026, down sharply from the peak flows of around 2.0 million bpd in mid-2025, representing an approximate 40% reduction in volume from that peak.
Moreover, a Reuters’ report published shortly before the tariff reduction was announced by Trump and Modi, cited unnamed Indian government officials as saying that India is slated to cut its Russian oil imports to below 1 million barrels per day soon, eventually bringing them down to around 500,000-600,000 bpd after March, in order to reach a trade deal with the US.
So, overall, in terms of timeline, the Author’s projection in October 2025 that India will continue to reduce its Russian oil imports through the first half of 2026 has proven mostly accurate, and also his assertion that this reduction of Russian oil purchase “was a prerequisite for any agreement.”
Now, that being said, it is important to point out that reaching the trade deal is only the latest in the series of substantial developments in India-US bilateral relations that have taken place since the Author wrote the following in the aforesaid article:
“This is not the first time that the US and India have found themselves at odds with each other in the 25 years of their strategic partnership so far, and regardless of the ruling dispensation in either country, the governments of both the countries have always managed to resolve their differences and take their partnership forward from strength to strength.”
Other than having reached a truce on the issue of tariffs, in the four months since the Author’s aforesaid article was published, India and the US have significantly increased their entrenchment in this strategic partnership encompassing cooperation in defense, energy, critical minerals, and tech cooperation, to the extent that these developments could be described as ‘transformational’ even.
So, let us take a look at these aforesaid engagements between India and the US to truly understand the various layers of this continually deepening India-US partnership.
India-US Defense Cooperation Continues To Deepen
On October 31st, 2025, India’s Raksha Mantri (or Defense Minister), Rajnath Singh, and the US Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, signed a 10-year defense framework on the sidelines of the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting Plus (ASMM Plus) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
This agreement is a continuation of earlier 10-year Framework Agreements concluded in 2005 and 2015. With the 2015 agreement completing its 10-year term in 2025, its renewal was formally identified as a “key deliverable” in the India–US Joint Statement issued on February 13, 2025, following the meeting between the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the US President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C.
These framework agreements are meant to chart the evolution of bilateral defense cooperation and record the progress achieved until the time they were first instituted, as part of which, they review the performance of existing institutional mechanisms and lay the groundwork for the creation of new ones that have emerged/will emerge over time.
The core areas of engagement covered by the previous framework agreements included joint military exercises, maritime security, intelligence sharing, counter-terrorism cooperation, missile defence, disaster response capabilities, and defence trade and technology collaboration. The agreements also referenced the Defence Policy Group (DPG) and its subsidiary bodies, as well as cooperation under the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI).
While the full text of the 2025 agreement has not yet been released publicly, per the factsheet released by the US Department of War, the key defense priorities outlined in the latest framework agreement include strengthening interoperability across all domains, including land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace, increasing information sharing for greater situational and domain awareness, collaboration in multinational operations including cooperative maritime activities, joint development and co-production of defense capabilities in the fields of IS&R (Intelligence, Surveillance, & Reconnaissance), undersea domain awareness, air combat and support air and space domain awareness munitions, and mobility.
Experts also suggest that the latest defense framework agreement is expected to place greater emphasis on private sector companies in defense industrial cooperation, and is likely to promote expanded defense trade including the defense exports from the Indian side, and this broader push could probably also include the reduction of barriers linked to International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), streamlining of licensing procedures, and negotiations on a Reciprocal Defense Procurement Agreement (RDP).
The US Department of War’s factsheet also stated that the latest framework agreement supports developing India as a logistics, maintenance, repair, and overhaul hub for the region.
Moreover, at the time of the signing of the 2025 India–US defence framework agreement, Rakhsa Mantri Rajnath Singh also raised the issue of early finalisation of a proposed deal between Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and General Electric for the joint production of F414 jet engines in India, according to reports at the time.
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