US vice president JD Vance and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz are expected to be in India on the same day in the third week of April, with the visits being seen as a diplomatic coup for the Indian side, people familiar with the matter said.
While Waltz’s visit to New Delhi for a meeting with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval on the TRUST initiative for technology cooperation had been firmed up some time ago, Vance’s trip too has been finalised, the people said on the condition of anonymity.
Waltz, who is expected to travel to India between April 21 and 23, will participate in a closed-door India-US Forum being organised by a think tank, the people said.
The visits by Vance and Waltz will follow a trip to India by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who was the first member of President Donald Trump’s cabinet to travel to New Delhi in March for a security conclave and the Raisina Dialogue.
There is a very brief window for a meeting between Vance and Waltz and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is expected to travel to Saudi Arabia during April 22-23, the people said.
One of the main issues on the agenda for Waltz’s visit is the TRUST (Transforming the Relationship Utilizing Strategic Technology) initiative, which was launched at a meeting between Trump and Modi in Washington in February and is a rebranded version of the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET).
TRUST is focused on collaboration between the governments, academia and private sectors of India and the US on critical and emerging technologies in areas such as defence, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum computing, biotechnology, energy and space, and ensuring the protection of sensitive technologies.
Like iCET, TRUST is headed by the NSAs of the two sides and the meeting will be an opportunity for India and US to take stock of a range of initiatives on defence and critical technologies, including addressing export controls, reducing regulatory barriers and building trusted supply chains.
The people said the visit by Vance and his Indian-origin wife, Usha, is expected to be mainly of a personal nature and aimed at introducing the couple’s children to their Indian origins. “It will be 75% personal in nature, with a 25% official component,” one person said.
An American advance security team scoped out several places that Vance and his family are likely to visit.
Among the locations visited by the American security team were Agra, Jaipur, Shimla and Hyderabad, which is being considered as a place the couple could visit with their three children because Usha’s parents Radhakrishna Chilukuri and Lakshmi Chilukuri trace their roots to Andhra Pradesh.
The visit is expected to have a strong personal angle by way of the couple introducing their children – sons Ewan and Vivek and daughter Maribel – to India, the people said.
Vance met Usha Chilukuri while attending Yale Law School and the couple married in 2014.
