Photo: Alamy
President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that the U.S. has agreed to a new energy deal with India.
The news was shared during a press conference with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Washington, D.C.
“Starting this year, we’ll be increasing military sales to India by many billions of dollars. We’re also giving the way to ultimately provide India with the F 35 stealth fighters,” Trump said.
“The prime minister and I also reached an important agreement on energy that will restore the United States as a leading supplier of oil and gas to India. It will be, hopefully, their number one supplier,” he continued.
“India is also reforming its laws to welcome U.S. nuclear technology, which is at the highest level, into the Indian market,” he added. “This will bring safe, clean, affordable electricity to millions of Indians and 10s of billions of dollars to the US civilian nuclear industry in India.”
Modi said that India and the U.S. plan to double their bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030 and will soon work on a mutually beneficial trade agreement.
“We have … set ourselves the target of more than doubling our bilateral trade to attain $500 billion by 2030,” Modi said. “Our teams will work on concluding very soon, a mutually beneficial trade agreement.”
In a surprising development, Trump and Modi also announced plans to extradite one of the terrorists involved in the 2008 Mumbai bombing to India, where he will stand trial.
“I am pleased to announce that my administration has approved the extradition of one of the plotters and one of the very evil people of the world, having to do with the horrific 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack to face justice in India. So he is going to be going back to India to face justice,” Trump told reporters.
The person’s identity was not mentioned during the press conference, but Reuters later reported the suspect as the man, Tahawwur Rana, who is of Pakistani background.
The attacks, which lasted three days and targeted hotels, a train station, and a Jewish center, began on Nov. 26, 2008, resulting in 166 deaths. India attributes the attacks to the Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, while Pakistan’s government denies any involvement.
