US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets PM Modi

New Delhi: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Wednesday. He is also supposed to meet External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval later today. Trade, terror and defence are considered to be the main topics of discussion.

Pompeo reached New Delhi on Tuesday evening after a stopover in Afghanistan. He visited PM Modi today morning and will meet Jaishankar over lunch.

MEA Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted the Pompeo-Modi meeting.

Working together to further deepen our strategic partnership@SecPompeo called on PM @narendramodi to exchange views on various aspects of Indo-US relationship. PM will meet President @realDonaldTrump on the sidelines of the upcoming #G20OsakaSummit pic.twitter.com/Jjjp9gTKbd

— Arindam Bagchi (@MEAIndia) June 26, 2019

Impending Jaishankar-Pompeo Meet

Besides India’s S-400 missile defence system deal with Russia, terrorism, H-1B visas, trade and the situation arising out of US sanctions on buying oil from Iran, are likely to be discussed on Wednesday during the talks between Jaishankar and Pompeo.

Jaishankar and Pompeo will prepare the groundwork for the Prime Minister’s meeting with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan. Though the timing has not been finalized yet, it is likely to be held on June 28.

EAM Jaishankar is scheduled to accompany PM Modi for the G-20 summit just like Pompeo will accompany Trump in Japan.

US Secretary of State Pompeo’s visit also comes against the backdrop of the US recently withdrawing India from its preferential trade list, with India then imposing retaliatory tariffs on 28 items imported from the US.

As India is one of the major exporters of these items to the US, the move has a revenue implication of about $240 million on domestic steel and aluminium products.

Apart from this, the US is also reportedly tightening rules for the H1-B visas for nations that force foreign companies to store data locally.

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