Ahead of April 2 tariff deadline, top US functionaries to visit India

India and the US appear poised to strengthen their diplomatic and strategic partnership, with several top American officials scheduled to visit India in the coming days and months.

Ahead of the April 2 deadline set by US President Donald Trump for reciprocal tariffs on India, Assistant US Trade Representative Brendan Lynch is expected to visit Delhi for negotiations. Her trip follows Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal’s visit to the US to explore possible tariff-related agreements.

Later, US Vice-President JD Vance is set to travel to India, accompanied by Second Lady Usha Vance. This will be Vance’s second overseas visit after his recent trip to France and Germany. For Usha Vance, whose parents emigrated from India, it will be her first visit to the country since her husband’s inauguration. Before his US visit in February, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had met Vance in Paris on the sidelines of the AI Action Summit.

Also expected to visit India are US National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Lynch’s visit holds significance amid India and the US’s commitment to strengthening trade ties following the February 13 bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump in Washington.

The India-US joint statement at the time underscored this intent: “The leaders resolved to expand trade and investment to make their citizens more prosperous, nations stronger, economies more innovative and supply chains more resilient. They resolved to deepen the US-India trade relationship to promote growth that ensures fairness, national security and job creation. To this end, the leaders set a bold new goal for bilateral trade — ‘Mission 500’ — aiming to more than double total bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030.”

Both sides acknowledged that achieving this target would require fairer trade terms and announced plans to negotiate the first tranche of a multi-sector Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) by fall of 2025.

Trump has been pressing India to lower tariffs, citing the country’s trade surplus with the US, its largest trading partner. India has maintained that negotiations are ongoing and that efforts are underway to establish a framework for the BTA.

“To advance the innovative, wide-ranging BTA, the US and India will take an integrated approach to strengthening and deepening bilateral trade across the goods and services sectors. They will work towards increasing market access, reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers, and deepening supply chain integration,” the joint statement noted.