‘It’s Not Competitive in Nature’

Washington and the world have changed a lot in the two years since Vinay Kwatra took charge as India’s ambassador to the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump has upended much of the world order—militarily, economically, and diplomatically. The U.S.-India relationship has been no exception.

But technology has been a bilateral bright spot—as Kwatra outlined in an interview with Foreign Policy at his residence last week—with the two countries strengthening partnerships in areas such as space, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and critical minerals.

He also discussed how India is navigating the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, provided an update on New Delhi’s trade talks with Washington, and addressed the tensions in other aspects of the U.S.-India relationship.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Foreign Policy: There have been a lot of shifts in the U.S.-India relationship over the past couple of years, but technology cooperation is one area that has remained relatively consistent. What do you see as the main contours of that cooperation?

Vinay Kwatra: Science and technology ultimately is a very key constituent of our own economic growth and prosperity. There is a huge bilateral component. So what we do is not restricted to our own benefit, it also feeds into synergies and positives into a bilateral engagement. And the larger play there is that eventually whatever you do gets diffused into global distribution. That’s the nature of science and technology—ultimately it’s for the benefit of humanity overall. It’s not possible to do this in isolation.

If you track the trend of science- and technology-based engagement between India and the U.S. over the last 10 years or so, you will find a very distinct pattern of technology partnerships that are rooted in building not just a bilateral ecosystem of engagement and cooperation, but also very strongly linked to institutional partnerships. To give you an example, in just the last few years what the Indian Space Research Organization has done with NASA here in terms of space cooperation has been quite remarkable. There was a time where our exchanges with NASA by and large were limited to data exchanges, but it has really transformed over the last few years.

We also launched our semiconductor mission, and I was involved in the initial discussions and considerations of how to shape that in the policy space. There was a very close engagement with the semiconductor-based research expertise in the U.S. Those efforts today have borne actually very concrete fruits in a sense that I am told that two pilot production plants are already in the running, and by next year, the commercial production of the legacy nodes [basic, general-purpose chips that help power technologies including cars, home appliances, and consumer electronics] would start.

There’s also AI infrastructure. In the last several months there have been some very crucial announcements by American companies to invest in building AI infrastructure in India. And again, that is something of mutual benefit.

So AI, biopharmaceuticals, critical minerals, and a fourth crucial pillar I would add is quantum. And I’m not even mentioning the technology-based partnerships that we do in the field of defense innovation, what we do with each other in undersea communication, maritime surveillance, and all those spaces.

Ultimately, the government enablement of this high technology cooperation is very crucial because there are parts of it which I would say are crucial in ensuring that these technologies do not fall into the wrong hands. So when we build our legacy nodes, we promise to the world that when we partner with you, our partnership is pillared on that trusted and reliable kind of supply chain. 

FP: There are obviously a lot of areas of cooperation, but there’s also an inherent tension between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” mission and U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” philosophy that calls for more manufacturing and technology to move back to the United States.

VK: Call it “Make in India,” “Make in the U.S.,” friendshoring, onshoring, reshoring, whichever way you want to describe it—it is natural that each country would look at these things from the perspective of their national priorities and interests. Our experience tells us that when we pursue science- and technology-based engagement with the U.S., whether it is at the level of two governments, or two industries, or between research institutions, we have only found complementarities in our engagement. And I think that is one of the very key characteristics of our entire economic engagement. It’s not competitive in nature.

So for example, if India has prioritized building semiconductors from 28 nanometers and above, the U.S. has prioritized building 1 to 2 nanometers [more advanced chips]. And those two are entirely different categories. When you talk of pharmaceuticals, for example, our partnership has focused on building supply chains that could be geopolitically de-risked. The U.S. has certain core competencies in certain streams, we have in another stream. They come together quite nicely, so in our experience we have only found complementarities, not really the kind of contradiction you are perhaps alluding to. And Prime Minister Modi has said very openly that we don’t see any contradiction between “Make in India” and our priorities with the rest of the world.

FP: Your tenure as ambassador has spanned both the Biden and Trump administrations. The Biden administration saw India as a counterweight to China in many aspects, including in technology, and India was actually the first to ban TikTok and other Chinese apps back in 2020. Has that framing changed under the Trump administration? How does India see the Trump push for countries to adopt the American technology stack [a bundle of integrated U.S.-made technologies that help power applications]?

VK: How India approaches its relationships with other countries is purely based on considerations involving those countries. So when India banned TikTok and took other significant measures in terms of ensuring the security of the digital ecosystem within our own country, those measures stood on their own, and you would have seen that those measures continue because those were taken in the context of how we view our relationships and the positioning of those platforms within our own ecosystem. And that is always an ongoing consideration.

I would not agree with this underlying notion, because what you are essentially suggesting is that we were doing a set of technology-based partnerships in the Biden administration, which we have either slowed or paused or stopped doing in the Trump administration. I think the facts are actually to the contrary. So, in fact, in the current administration, what we are trying to do is actually not just build on what we did during the Biden administration, but we are also partnering with the U.S. in some of their new signature initiatives. So India’s membership of Pax Silica [a U.S.-led international coalition to support AI and supply-chain security] is a classic example of that.

I mentioned to you the announcements of U.S. companies to build AI infrastructure in India. We have our own very vibrant different layers of AI. So whether it is the infrastructure space (the data center-building capacity), or it is the model space (you build your own models), or it is the application space, and then most importantly, delivery of that intelligence to the people at large. So you would have noticed our efforts under the AI summit, which took place in India—the first time that the summit was held in a developing country. We only saw examples of cooperation, frankly.

We are determined to do what is good for us in terms of development of artificial intelligence, what is our national priority. We have what I will call an enormously scientific strength talent in India, which lends itself to building on all aspects of artificial intelligence, coupled with a very easy acceptance of new technology. And the single most important demonstration of this was the India tech stack. I think the India tech stack or India AI stack responds to Indian priorities. It also responds to the priorities of the global south in a very significant way because it is customized in that fashion, and going forward I am quite confident that there will be areas of cooperation in that space.

FP: You mentioned the talent and innovation ecosystem that India has. A lot of that talent has historically flowed to the United States, whether through admissions to U.S. universities or H-1B work visas that have disproportionately gone to Indians. Both of those avenues are under enormous pressure from the Trump administration. How much of your time does that occupy, and what do those conversations with the administration look like?

VK: It is indeed a very important issue. From our side, we have always believed that legal mobility of skilled professionals has always been a huge contributor to the growth of the India-U.S. economic partnership.

We have never supported illegal mobility, we have always stood in favor of legal and business mobility. And our experience tells us that whether it is business or industry, or it is technology, or it is the research space, this mobility is very, very crucial. Yes, we have spoken to the U.S. administration about the challenges which this legitimate legal mobility faces, and we do continue to talk to them about that. And I think this is something which is very important for the growth of science and technology in the larger economic partnership.

FP: I also wanted to ask about the status of the India-U.S. trade relationship—it’s been a few months since the two countries announced their preliminary trade deal, with the Supreme Court striking down most of Trump’s tariffs just days later.

VK: Not the Indian Supreme Court. [laughs]

FP: Right, the U.S. Supreme Court, I should make clear. But now we’re in this holding pattern of sorts, with a Section 301 investigation and allegations of Indian overcapacity. Can you give us a sense of where things stand, and what you see as the biggest remaining sticking points?

VK: Look, I don’t think it’s been on a holding pattern. I don’t think that would be the correct way to frame it. You are absolutely right that we did announce a joint statement, and the president and the prime minister did tweet a tariff understanding arrived between the two countries. And then the U.S. Supreme Court judgment came, and the whole thing had to be put into a revised architecture, especially on the U.S. side, because you need a tariff authority under which to position this agreement.

But what both sides did was that even from the time of the Supreme Court judgment, we have continued our engagement with the U.S. in true earnest with the objective of concluding the deal at the earliest possible moment, of course within the agreed framework. That’s why you would have noticed that most recently a senior U.S. delegation was in India, [and] a few weeks prior to that the Indian delegation was in the U.S. The two sides have [also] been in very regular touch through the other modes of communication including video conferences.

And the idea is that while there was a joint statement and a tariff norm, you also need to flesh out the text of the agreement. Both sides have been working intensely to arrive at that agreement as early as possible, but of course it has to be in the larger scope of the earlier discussion and the agreement that was arrived at, which, as you observed, the U.S. Supreme Court judgment altered quite significantly.

FP: Is there a timeline that you are looking at for the deal to be finalized? 

VK: Look, from our side, we are working very hard to do it as early as we can. Both sides are working on it, I should say. I mean, I should be honest, because USTR [the U.S. Trade Representative] has been equally engaged with us.

FP: Zooming out further to the broader U.S.-India relationship over these past couple of years, there was a sense given the precedent from President Trump’s first term that India was very well positioned for Trump to come back. Few people would argue with the notion that it hasn’t exactly panned out that way. There has been a lot of tension in various aspects of the U.S.-India relationship. I’m curious why you think that is.

VK: If you actually look at it very closely right from the time that the new administration came in, you would observe that the new administration has taken a view for the whole world—how they approach the U.S. trade relationship with the rest of the world, how they approach other aspects of their partnership with the rest of the world. Each country has had to look at this worldview which the Trump administration has taken, and we have been no exception.

Our effort throughout this has always been to maintain the salience and the strength of our partnership in terms of specific areas of engagement, and we have continued relentlessly in our efforts to build on that. And of course, as part of that, one of the key things has been to stay engaged with the Trump administration, with the objective [of]: “What does our relationship bring in terms of benefits to both our societies? Two, what does this relationship bring in terms of benefits to our shared priorities internationally? Three, how can a stronger relationship between our two countries help us both address the shared challenges that we face?” And I think those conversations have continued with great intensity.

If you have closely followed the recent visit of [U.S.] Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio to India, you’ll find this will be a matrix of that. Regionally, I think our engagement has remained very strong. There have been three meetings of the Quad foreign ministers. In fact, the very first meeting that Secretary Rubio hosted after becoming secretary of state—within an hour, effectively—was the Quad foreign minister meeting, and the first minister he met within an hour of his taking over was actually the Indian foreign minister. So those relationships have continued.

As I said, this administration’s worldview is their worldview. They have their priorities. We have our priorities, we have our national interest. We will be responding and addressing those as a topmost priority, and we see no reason why that doesn’t form the basis of cooperation.

FP: If I could sneak in one more question, just because it’s been in the news: the three Indian sailors that were killed in a U.S. strike [on their vessel in the Strait of Hormuz]. I know India summoned the U.S. DCM [deputy chief of mission] in Delhi. I’m just curious what your conversations here on that front have looked like. What are you saying to and hearing from the Trump administration? [Editor’s note: This interview took place before the U.S.-Iran deal was announced.]

VK: Delhi has already replied to this. You would have seen the Ministry of External Affairs’ very strong response to that, not just in terms of statement, but also in terms to describe that their CDA [chargé d’affaires] was summoned in Delhi.

Look, the continuing attacks on shipping in the region are obviously deeply worrisome. We have the second-largest, I think, contingent of seafarers in the world. That’s why we have been among the list of countries in the forefront asking, seeking, and strongly recommending deescalation in the region and diplomatic solutions so that the region is peaceful and stable. That’s a region which has roughly 10 million Indian diaspora, and we firmly think that the targeting of the commercial shipping and the civilian infrastructure in the region must end, and the freedom of navigation and commerce through the international waterway in the region must be maintained in keeping with the international law.