India plans to buy 1,000 planes from US, increases oil and gas purchase
New Delhi : In the course of global trade war, India is looking for peace with the US by submitting the order of nearly 1,000 civilian aircraft over the next 7-8 years and increase oil and gas purchase from the world's largest trader. The information was conveyed by commerce minister Suresh Prabhu to his US counterpart during their meeting, last week.
Coming Sunday, assistant US trade representative Mark Linscott will begin discussions here with commerce ministry officials as both sides try to find solutions to problems on the trade front. India is trying to influence the US that its reciprocal tariffs are part of a WTO (World Trade Organization) sanctioned right after the US took the first step with steel and aluminium duties. India is interested to see some decisions before the 2+2 talks between foreign minister Sushma Swaraj and defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman and their US counterparts - secretary of state Mike Pompeo and defence secretary James Mattis, respectively in Washington on July 6.
Possibly, India will be pay about $5 billion a year for aircraft and about $4 billion for purchase of oil and gas from the US. This calculation has no connection with defence purchases where India is now looking at buying 12 more naval surveillance aircraft P8i. For now, India is the largest owner of these aircraft outside the US.
Sources confirmed that India and the US are working on the next initial agreement, the communications compatibility and security agreement which may be written in the upcoming months. The joint work comes after the logistics exchange memorandum of agreement was carried out last year. Only the basic exchange and cooperation agreement are left to be signed between the two countries.
Most recently, India’s Defence Minister will visit US’s Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii. Though the defence and security relationships have improved hugely between the two countries, yet some gaps need to be filled up. According to Indian officials, these could get wider if the US were to hit CAATSA (Countering America's Adversaries through Sanctions Act) sanctions on India for buying defence equipment from Russia. This will certainly dominate discussions to be held in the upcoming meetings.
