Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives at the White House Tuesday for his third Washington meeting with President Barack Obama since he swept to power two years ago.
The visit is meant to consolidate and celebrate a bilateral relationship that has grown closer and stronger over the last few years. That closeness is symbolized not just by the apparently warm friendship between the two leaders, but also by a staggering rise in U.S. defense sales to India, which have jumped from $300 million less than a decade ago to $14 billion today.
Obama will host a lunch for Modi, who goes on to meet with Secretary of Defense Ash Carter later in the day. Obama and Modi are expected to discuss economic relations, security cooperation and climate change — a legacy priority for Obama.
Indian officials recognize how important the climate change issue is to this White House but have some concerns about the continuity of U.S. policy if a Republican wins the White House in November, said Tanvi Madan, director of the India Project at the Brookings Institution.
Officials from both countries have pointed to progress the sides have made on climate change since Obama’s visit to New Delhi in 2015, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to visit India twice.
They also have characterized the two leaders as having “chemistry” with each other. During the President’s last trip to India, Modi broke with established protocol and showed up on the tarmac to be the first to greet Obama in India — and not just with a handshake. Modi pulled the travel-weary commander in chief in for the “bear hug” seen around the world, though like most unplanned hugs in front of a billion-viewer television audience, it was a little awkward.
The warm relationship comes after a period of strain between Washington and Modi. The nationalist Indian leader was a pariah in the United States until two year ago, after he was denied a U.S. visa over his handling of anti-Muslim riots in 2002 when he was chief minister of the state of Gujarat.
Later Tuesday, Modi meets with the U.S.-India Business Council. Modi has consistently pushed U.S. businesses — and particularly Silicon Valley — to invest in his country.
But today, both countries see more shared interests than differences.
Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that the the two leaders will discuss increasingly close economic ties and shared national security issues.
“We have seen in recent years greater and closer coordination between U.S. national security officials and Indian national security officials,” Earnest told reporters. “And the President is certainly interested in trying to deepen and strengthen those ties because it would enhance the national security of both our countries.”
On Wednesday, the Prime Minister goes to Capitol Hill to deliver the first address to a joint session of Congress by a foreign leader in 2016. Modi is expected to highlight the shared democratic traditions of the U.S. and India, and to emphasize the ways in which India contributes to world economic growth and what Obama likes to call the “rules-based” international order.
Modi will also be feted at a reception hosted by the House and Senate foreign relations committees and the India caucus.
Modi arrived in Washington Monday. He visited Arlington Cemetery to pay his respects, met with the leaders of think tanks and attended an event on the return of stolen antiquities from India.