National security advisers Ajit Doval and Jake Sullivan met in New Delhi on Monday, during which they promised to remove obstacles to bilateral strategic commerce, technology, and industrial collaboration. The two-day visit by Sullivan coincided with a strengthening of ties between the United States and India in response to growing concerns over China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific.
In January 2023, the India-US effort on critical and emerging technology was launched, and Sullivan and Doval presided over the second meeting of the initiative. Initiating a new strategic semiconductor collaboration for electronics centred on national security, they committed to preventing the leakage of critical technologies to countries of concern.
To further diversify the supply chain for critical minerals and move closer to finalising a bilateral critical minerals accord, they also chose to co-invest in a South American lithium project and an African rare earth deposit discovery.
Among the topics covered were the potential joint manufacture of fighter jet engines in India and plans for co-production of ground warfare weapons with General Electric. India revealed last year that it purchased 31 MQ-9B drones from General Atomics during Prime Minister Modi’s state visit to Washington.
