JD Vance to arrive in Delhi with family at 9:30 a.m. today

Washington, April 21 (IANS) US Vice-President JD Vance, second lady Usha Vance and their three children left Italy for India where they are scheduled to arrive Monday morning for a four-day visit that included a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Air Force 2 is expected to land in New Delhi at 9:30 a.m. They will also be traveling to Agra and Jaipur. The second couple is accompanied by their three children—Ewan, 7, and Vivek, 4, the boys, and Mirabel, 2, their daughter. Usha Vance’s family came to the US from Andhra Pradesh, and it was not immediately known if she and her family were to receive Indian relatives during their stay.

This will be the vice-president’s first visit to India and it will come amidst talks between the two countries to arrive at a trade deal triggered by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on all imports into America. Initially tariffed at 26 per cent. the levy on India stands at the baseline 10 per cent for all trading partners except China during a 90-day pause in the rollout of original levies.

The vice-president is scheduled to meet the prime minister, which will be their second bilateral. The first took place in February in Paris on the sidelines of the AI summit. From there the prime minister had carried on to Washington DC for his first meeting with the American president after his return to the White House.

Vance is the second senior Trump administration official to visit India in this term.

The first was Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, who visited in March and apart from meeting the prime minister and other officials she also addressed the Raisina Dialogue, an annual government-backed meeting of national security and foreign policy leaders and experts from around the world.

Vance is the first American vice-president to travel to India in 13 years. The last one was Joe Biden, who visited India as vice-president to President Barack Obama in 2013. Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, the two in between, did not.

--IANS

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