Washington:
The proposed India-US trade agreement is in its “last one or 2 per cent”, US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor said on Monday, as senior American and Indian officials projected growing confidence in one of Washington’s most consequential strategic partnerships, highlighting expanding cooperation in trade, technology, artificial intelligence, semiconductors and defence.
Speaking at the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) Leadership Summit in Washington, Gor said negotiators from both countries were in the final stages of concluding the long-awaited bilateral trade agreement.
“Most of this deal is complete. There are a few items that remain from both sides, but it’s in the last one or 2 per cent of that deal,” Gor said.
He said both governments had intensified negotiations over the past few weeks and described the agreement as “a win-win situation” that would bring greater certainty to businesses trading between the two countries.
“As I mentioned, the trade deal — we’re close to getting it done… pretty much the last three weeks we’ve had travels back and forth,” he said.
Rejecting suggestions that bilateral ties had weakened, Gor said the partnership was stronger than critics acknowledged.
“So to all those pundits that sit online and tweet and say this relationship is in trouble, when you look at the facts of where this relationship stands, whether it’s trade, whether it’s defence, or whether it’s the people-to-people ties, the relationship is on strong footing,” he said.
He also announced that the Quad foreign ministers were expected to meet in the Philippines in about two weeks before holding another ministerial meeting in Australia, with preparations also underway for a future Quad leaders’ summit that would include President Donald Trump visiting India.
The ambassador revealed that the US Embassy in New Delhi had attracted $20.5 billion in new investments into the United States this year, making it the highest-performing American diplomatic mission globally in investment promotion.
“Our embassy New Delhi… brought in $20.5 billion in new investments. And that put us in first place by far,” he said.
PM Modi-Trump Relationship Remains Strong
Gor also underlined the personal rapport between President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, describing it as an important pillar of the bilateral relationship.
Recalling a recent evening with Trump at a UFC event in Miami, Gor said the president spontaneously suggested calling Modi.
“I said, ‘Sir, it’s 6:00 AM in the morning there.’
“He said, ‘He’ll be up. He’s like me.'”
Although the call was scheduled for the following day, Gor said the episode reflected the relationship between the two leaders.
“When you’re friends with somebody, not everything has to be scheduled.”
“And the president truly considers the prime minister a friend.”
He added that Trump “deeply cares about this relationship” and continued to speak fondly about his visit to India during his first term.
India An ‘Indispensable Anchor’
India’s Ambassador to the United States, Vinay Mohan Kwatra, said India’s transformation over the past decade had fundamentally altered its global role.
“Prime Minister Modi’s India is not just an indispensable bridge. I think it’s an indispensable anchor of the global order, of economic growth, of stability, of trust and reliability,” Kwatra said.
He said a decade of economic reforms, manufacturing expansion and investments in strategic sectors had enabled India to sustain growth of more than seven per cent while building resilience in food, energy and health security.
Kwatra said India, now a $4.3 trillion economy, was expected to reach about $7 trillion by the end of the decade, around $14 trillion by the middle of the 2030s and between $25 trillion and $30 trillion by 2047.
He said achieving the leaders’ target of $500 billion in bilateral trade by 2030—Mission 500—would require much more than increased exports.
“Trade Doesn’t Move In Isolation”
“It moves when your supply chains are better connected… when there is a strong flow of capital… when innovation, investment, manufacturing and skill mobility converge together.”
Kwatra also highlighted biotechnology, artificial intelligence and semiconductors as the next frontiers of cooperation.
He pointed to India’s 12,000 biotechnology startups, the recently launched BioSaarthi 2026 initiative, and rapid progress in semiconductor manufacturing following Micron’s investment.
“Two, three years ago, we had a nascent to negligible semiconductor industry,” he said, adding that pilot production was expected to begin this year and commercial production next year.
On artificial intelligence, he said India sought to build capabilities across the entire AI stack while ensuring that technology ultimately delivered outcomes that benefited society.
Why Washington Sees India As Indispensable
Jacob Helberg, US Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment, described India as America’s most important long-term technology partner in building resilient supply chains beyond China.
“India obviously is the only country on earth that fundamentally rivals China with respect to the depth of its engineering workforce and talent pool,” Helberg said.
He said Washington wanted to diversify critical technology supply chains away from China while building a shared AI developer ecosystem with India.
“Broadly speaking, we want to increase production capacity outside of China in order to de-risk our overall overconcentration with China,” he said.
Helberg stressed that the United States did not see technological competition with India as a zero-sum game.
“We don’t view it as a zero-sum game,” he said, arguing that innovation expanded opportunities for all partners rather than diminishing them.
The remarks from Gor, Kwatra and Helberg painted a picture of an India-US partnership moving simultaneously on multiple fronts — from a near-complete trade agreement and expanding defence cooperation to trusted technology ecosystems, resilient supply chains and artificial intelligence.
As both governments pursue their shared goal of raising bilateral trade to $500 billion, officials from both sides projected confidence that the relationship is entering one of its most consequential phases in decades.
