The vice-president of the United States of America, J.D. Vance, made a pitch for trade parity between New Delhi and Washington in an address in Jaipur on Tuesday, a day after he met the prime minister, Narendra Modi. Mr Vance, who is visiting India for the first time, said that the US wants a trade partner that will not suppress labour wages to keep prices low. He added that the ideal trade partner would manufacture products and not just serve as a conduit for the transfer of other countries’ goods. Mr Vance did not say which country he was thinking of when he made these comments but India — his host — would fit the bill. As the Economic Survey of 2025 had revealed, corporate profits are soaring while wages have stagnated. It is also a poorly-kept secret that India refines cheap Russian oil and then sells that to the West, earning profits while also helping Moscow’s crude reach countries that have otherwise sanctioned it. If, indeed, Mr Vance’s words describe the priorities of his administration as it seeks to strike trade deals, New Delhi and Washington face a steep slope ahead.
The rhetoric, of course, is optimistic — if confusing. Mr Vance, who is visiting the country with his Indian-origin wife, Usha, and their three children, said in Jaipur that the two sides had finalised the terms of reference for a trade deal. Yet, there is nothing imminent about a pact. The Union finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, had said on Monday that a deal could be ready by the end of the year. However, the 90-day reprieve from high tariffs given by the US president, Donald Trump, expires in July. It is unclear what happens after that. It must be admitted that India does impose substantially higher tariffs on imports than the US does. Yet, as farmers’ protests across India on Monday against a prospective deal with the US show, India’s agrarian sector, in particular, fears having to compete with products from wealthier economies for the domestic market. Those worries are genuine: unlike industrial agricultural production in the West, rural India is fractured into mostly small land holdings and farmers often do not have the resources to match the scale and the packaging of their Western counterparts. Half of India’s population still depends on agriculture. Mr Modi’s government must protect India’s interests while also shielding the nation from heavy
US tariffs. Mr Vance laid out what the US wants in its trade partners. Mr Modi’s government must tell the US what India wants in a friend: respect and understanding.