The U.S. has said it is “very excited” to have extended an invitation to India to join the Pax Silica initiative on supply chain security and will be soon signing with the Indian government, underlining there is “very positive momentum” in relations with New Delhi.

Highlighting the “great relationship” between U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Washington also stressed that India is probably the only other country on Earth to be able to “rival China” in terms of the sheer volume of its human talent. “We are very excited to have extended an invitation for India to join” Pax Silica, and “I’ll be travelling to India in just a couple weeks for a major signing with the Indian government,” Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg told reporters on Friday (February 6, 2026).

The U.S. had last year in December launched ‘Pax Silica’, a strategic initiative to build a secure, prosperous, and innovation driven silicon supply chain—from critical minerals and energy inputs to advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, AI infrastructure, and logistics. The signatories are Australia, Greece, Israel, Japan, Qatar, South Korea, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. India was not included in the initial group of countries for the Pax Silica initiative. 

Mr. Helberg added that while the Pax Silica was launched in December, and by January, the U.S. had “already had a meeting of the minds” around India joining Pax Silica. “And so we’re very pleased at the pace at which things have been moving in a very positive direction with our partners in India,” Mr. Helberg said during a briefing organised by the Washington Foreign Press Centre on the Critical Minerals Ministerial that the U.S. hosted last week.

 “India is also home to a large – very large mining and processing operations, which obviously holds great promise to make significant contributions to the supply chain ecosystem. And so there’s a lot of terrain in which we will be able to partner on with India,” he said.

Mr. Helberg further pointed out that outside of China, “India is probably the only other country on Earth to be able to rival China with respect to the breadth and depth of the sheer volume of young, technically trained talent, human talent.”  

“We view India very positively, and President Trump has a great relationship with [Prime Minister] Narendra Modi,” he added.

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Mr. Helberg also said that “we’re very excited and very proud about the bilateral trade deal being concluded with India.” Mr. Helberg’s comment about the trade deal came just hours before India and the U.S. issued a joint statement announcing that the two sides have reached a framework for an Interim Agreement regarding reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade.  Under the agreement, India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on all U.S. industrial goods and a wide range of U.S. food and agricultural products, including dried distillers’ grains, red sorghum for animal feed, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products.

According to the joint statement, the U.S. will reduce tariffs on Indian goods to 18%. U.S. President Donald Trump also issued an Executive Order removing the punitive 25% tariffs imposed on India for its purchases of Russian oil.  Mr. Helberg further said that India and the United States are two very large countries, with America by far the world’s largest economy and India the world’s largest country demographically and a very young country, very fast-growing economy. “So for us to align on things, it takes a little bit more work because of the sheer size of our countries,” he said, responding to a question on the role the U.S. envisages for India in Pax Silica and why the country was not initially included in the initiative.

During the briefing, Mr. Helberg spoke about the inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial meeting hosted in Washington on February 4, 2026 by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The ministerial brought together 55 delegations to explore ways to diversify and secure global critical minerals supply chains. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar participated in the ministerial and, in his remarks, “underlined challenges of excessive concentration and the importance of de-risking supply chains through structured international cooperation.”

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks often with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and trade teams from both countries continue to hold talks, the White House said on Tuesday (November 4, 2025).

“The President and his trade team continue to be in very serious discussions with India,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “I know the President has great respect for Prime Minister Modi, and they speak pretty frequently.”

Mr. Trump said last week in South Korea that he wanted to reach a trade deal with India — signaling a thaw in relations that soured to their lowest point in decades after the U.S. President doubled tariffs on Indian imports to 50% as punishment for India’s purchases of Russian oil.

Indian refiners cut Russian oil imports after Washington imposed sanctions last week on Moscow’s top two crude exporters, Rosneft and Lukoil.

The Trump administration has told the U.S. Supreme Court that it imposed tariffs against India for purchasing Russian energy products “to deal with a preexisting national emergency regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine” and as a “crucial aspect” of the President’s push for peace in the country.

Mr. Trump has imposed 25% reciprocal tariffs on India and an additional 25% levies for Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil, bringing the total duties imposed on India to 50%, with effect from August 27.

In a 251-page appeal to the Supreme Court, submitted on Wednesday (September 3, 2025), the Trump administration said that “the President recently authorised IEEPA (International Emergency Economic Powers Act) tariffs against India for purchasing Russian energy products, to deal with a preexisting national emergency regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine, as a crucial aspect of his push for peace in that war-torn country.”

The appeal further states that the “stakes in this case could not be higher. The President and his Cabinet officials have determined that the tariffs are promoting peace and unprecedented economic prosperity, and that the denial of tariff authority would expose our nation to trade retaliation without effective defences and thrust America back to the brink of economic catastrophe.”

It said that due to IEEPA tariffs, six major trading partners and the 27-nation European Union have already entered into framework deals with the United States, accepting tariff arrangements heavily recalibrated in America’s favour and agreeing to make approximately $2 trillion of purchases and investment in the U.S.’ economy.

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, in a 7-to-4 ruling, said the sweeping tariffs imposed by Mr. Trump on countries around the world are illegal, but also gave the administration time till October 14 to file a petition for a writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court, which the Trump administration did on Wednesday (September 4, 2025).

The appeal states that according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the tariffs “have been one of the country’s top foreign policy priorities for the last several months” and removing them “would lead to dangerous diplomatic embarrassment, expose the U.S. to the risk of retaliation”, and “interrupt ongoing negotiations mid-stream, undermining our ability to protect the national security and economic welfare of the American people.”

Pointing to the “fractured, 7-4 decision” of the appeals court declaring the President’s use of IEEPA tariffs as unlawful, the Trump administration told the court that “That decision casts a pall of uncertainty upon ongoing foreign negotiations that the President has been pursuing through tariffs over the past five months, jeopardising both already-negotiated framework deals and ongoing negotiations.”

Several of the Trump administration’s officials, including Mr. Bessent and trade advisor Peter Navarro, have said that India’s purchases of Russian oil are financing the Russian war effort in Ukraine.

On Wednesday (September 4, 2025), Mr. Trump said he put secondary sanctions on India for its purchases of Russian oil, “the largest purchaser outside of China”, and indicated that he hasn’t done “phase two yet or phase three” yet.

India has called the tariffs imposed by the U.S. “unjustified and unreasonable”.

New Delhi said that, like any major economy, it will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said India’s purchases of Russian crude were funding Moscow’s war in Ukraine and had to stop, adding that New Delhi was “now cozying up to both Russia and China.”

“If India wants to be treated as a strategic partner of the U.S., it needs to start acting like one,” Mr. Navarro wrote in an opinion piece published in the Financial Times.

EXPLAINED | Will India cave in to U.S. pressure on Russian oil?

The Ministry of External Affairs has previously said India is being unfairly singled out for buying Russian oil while the United States and European Union continue to purchase goods from Russia. U.S. President Donald Trump levied an additional 25% tariff on Indian goods earlier this month, citing New Delhi’s continued purchases of Russian oil, taking total tariffs on imports from India to 50%.

“India acts as a global clearinghouse for Russian oil, converting embargoed crude into high-value exports while giving Moscow the dollars it needs,” Mr. Navarro said.

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The adviser also said it was risky to transfer cutting-edge U.S. military capabilities to India as New Delhi was “now cozying up to both Russia and China.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping at the end of the month while Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is visiting India from Monday (August 18, 2025) for talks on the disputed border between the two countries.

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A planned visit by U.S. trade negotiators to New Delhi from August 25-29 has been called off, a source said over the weekend, delaying talks on a proposed trade agreement and dashing hopes of relief from additional U.S. tariffs on Indian goods from August 27.