NEW DELHI: US Vice President JD Vance began a four-day visit to India on Monday as New Delhi looks to seal an early trade deal and stave off punishing US tariffs.
Vance’s visit comes two months after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with US President Donald Trump at the White House.
A red carpet welcome with an honor guard and troupes of folk dancers greeted Vance after he stepped out into the sweltering sunshine of New Delhi, where he is set to meet with Modi.
Vance’s tour also includes a trip to Agra, home to the Taj Mahal, the white marble mausoleum commissioned by a Mughal emperor.
The US vice president is accompanied by his family, including his wife Usha, who is the daughter of Indian immigrants, with New Delhi’s broadcasters dubbing the visit “semi-private.”
Modi, 74, and Vance, 40, are expected to “review the progress in bilateral relations” and also “exchange views on regional and global developments of mutual interest,” India’s foreign ministry said last week.
India and the United States are negotiating the first tranche of a trade deal, which New Delhi hopes to secure within the 90-day pause on tariffs announced by Trump earlier this month.
“We are very positive that the visit will give a further boost to our bilateral ties,” India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters last week.
Vance was welcomed at the airport by Ashwini Vaishnaw, a senior member of Modi’s government.
Vance’s visit comes during an escalating trade war between the United States and China. India’s neighbor and rival faces US levies of up to 145 percent on many products.
Beijing has responded with duties of 125 percent on US goods.
India has so far reacted cautiously.
After the tariffs were announced, India’s Department of Commerce said it was “carefully examining the implications,” adding it was “also studying the opportunities that may arise.”
Modi, who visited the White House in February, has an acknowledged rapport with Trump, who said he shares a “special bond” with the Indian leader.
Trump, speaking while unveiling the tariffs, said Modi was a “great friend” but that he had not been “treating us right.”
During his visit to Washington, Modi said that the world’s largest and fifth-largest economies would work on a “mutually beneficial trade agreement.”
While the United States is a crucial market for India’s information technology and services sectors, Washington has made billions of dollars in new military hardware sales to New Delhi in recent years.
Trump could visit India later this year for a summit of heads of state from the Quad – a four-way grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.
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Vance in India for tough talks on trade
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Vance in India for tough talks on trade
- US Vice President JD Vance’s visit comes two months after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with US President Donald Trump at the White House
US Congress to depose Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell
- Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell will be questioned behind closed doors by the US Congress on Monday, though she’s expected to invoke her right to not answer questions
WASHINGTON:Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell will be questioned behind closed doors by the US Congress on Monday, though she’s expected to invoke her right to not answer questions.
Maxwell, currently serving 20 years in prison for trafficking girls to the disgraced financier Epstein, will face questions from prison via videolink, in a deposition by the House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee.
Though no new US prosecutions are expected after the latest dump of government files on Epstein, numerous political and business leaders have fallen into scandal or resigned as their ties to the convicted sex criminal were revealed.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee is probing Epstein’s connections to powerful figures and how information about his crimes was handled.
Maxwell, however, is expected to invoke her right to not incriminate herself, guaranteed in the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution.
Epstein was convicted in 2008 of soliciting a minor. His extensive ties to the world’s rich and powerful, especially after he was released in 2009, have become politically explosive across the globe.
He died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial for trafficking children in what was ruled a suicide.
Maxwell’s lawyers have pushed for Congress to grant her legal immunity in order to testify in the deposition, but lawmakers refused.
Without that, her legal team said she would invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
“Proceeding under these circumstances would serve no other purpose than pure political theater,” her lawyers said in a letter.
Though the deposition will occur behind closed doors, Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat, published a letter of the questions he intended to ask Maxwell even if she refuses to answer.
Some touch on Trump’s ties to Epstein and Maxwell.
Others focus on four “co-conspirators” as well as 25 other men who allegedly “sexually abused minors at Epstein’s island.”
One of the questions asks: “Why do you believe they were not indicted?“
The Trump administration has already come under criticism for its handling of her case.
Last year Maxwell was moved to a minimum-security prison in Texas after meeting twice with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.
Trump himself was a longtime Epstein associate, but has not been called to testify by the Oversight Committee, which is led by members of his Republican Party.
Trump has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing related to Epstein’s activities.
Also expected to be deposed by the committee are former president Bill Clinton and his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, both Democrats.
The Clintons have called for their depositions to be held publicly to prevent Republicans from politicizing their testimony.
Maxwell, currently serving 20 years in prison for trafficking girls to the disgraced financier Epstein, will face questions from prison via videolink, in a deposition by the House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee.
Though no new US prosecutions are expected after the latest dump of government files on Epstein, numerous political and business leaders have fallen into scandal or resigned as their ties to the convicted sex criminal were revealed.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee is probing Epstein’s connections to powerful figures and how information about his crimes was handled.
Maxwell, however, is expected to invoke her right to not incriminate herself, guaranteed in the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution.
Epstein was convicted in 2008 of soliciting a minor. His extensive ties to the world’s rich and powerful, especially after he was released in 2009, have become politically explosive across the globe.
He died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial for trafficking children in what was ruled a suicide.
Maxwell’s lawyers have pushed for Congress to grant her legal immunity in order to testify in the deposition, but lawmakers refused.
Without that, her legal team said she would invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
“Proceeding under these circumstances would serve no other purpose than pure political theater,” her lawyers said in a letter.
Though the deposition will occur behind closed doors, Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat, published a letter of the questions he intended to ask Maxwell even if she refuses to answer.
Some touch on Trump’s ties to Epstein and Maxwell.
Others focus on four “co-conspirators” as well as 25 other men who allegedly “sexually abused minors at Epstein’s island.”
One of the questions asks: “Why do you believe they were not indicted?“
The Trump administration has already come under criticism for its handling of her case.
Last year Maxwell was moved to a minimum-security prison in Texas after meeting twice with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.
Trump himself was a longtime Epstein associate, but has not been called to testify by the Oversight Committee, which is led by members of his Republican Party.
Trump has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing related to Epstein’s activities.
Also expected to be deposed by the committee are former president Bill Clinton and his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, both Democrats.
The Clintons have called for their depositions to be held publicly to prevent Republicans from politicizing their testimony.
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