US President Donald Trump on Friday said that the US will increase military sales to India by “many billions of dollars” beginning this year. During a joint press conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he further confirmed that India will soon get the fifth generation F-35 stealth fighter jets.
“Starting this year, we’ll be increasing military sales to India by many billions of dollars. We’re also paving the way to provide India with the F-35 stealth fighters ultimately. In 2017, my administration revived and reinvigorated the Quad Security Partnership. And during our meeting today, the Prime Minister and I reaffirmed that strong cooperation among the United States, India, Australia, and Japan is crucial, really, to maintaining peace and prosperity, tranquility, and even the Indo-Pacific.”
“Friends, today we have also set ourselves the target of more than doubling bilateral trade to attain $500 billion by 2030. Our teams will work on concluding a mutually beneficial trade agreement very soon to ensure India’s energy security. We will focus on trade in oil and gas.”
Addressing a joint news conference after a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, U.S. President Donald Trump said the countries had struck an agreement that includes India importing more U.S. oil and gas to shrink the trade deficit between the two countries.
Trump said on Thursday that the United States will increase military sales to India starting in 2025 and eventually provide F-35 fighter jets.
Trump did not provide a timeline, but foreign military sales, especially for cutting-edge technology like the stealthy F-35 jet, typically take years to work through.
A Trump administration official told reporters earlier that U.S. and Indian officials were also moving forward with talks on a bilateral trade deal. They hoped to have an agreement in place this year.
The F-35 jets are known to be the most-lethal, survivable, and connected fighter aircraft in the world. Besides this, the fighter aircraft is also special for its processing power, open architecture, sophisticated sensors, information fusion, and flexible communication links.
Moreover, these jets can operate without detection at supersonic speeds. The aircraft comes in three variants — the F-35A for conventional takeoff and landing, primarily used by the US Air Force; the F-35B for short takeoff and vertical landing, operated by the US Marine Corps; and the F-35C, a carrier-based model built for the US Navy.
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