President Trump said after meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday that India will increase its purchases of American oil and military hardware, culminating in India’s purchase of the advanced F-35 fighter jet.
“We’ll be increasing military sales to India by many billions of dollars. We’re also paving the way to ultimately provide India with the F-35 stealth fighters,” Trump said at a joint press conference with Modi.
Trump also said the U.S. will become “a leading supplier of oil and gas to India” under a new agreement that will help reduce America’s trade deficit with India. The president said he hoped the U.S. would eventually become India’s top supplier, a position currently held by Russia.
America was India’s fifth-largest supplier of oil last year, and second in providing liquefied natural gas (LNG), following Qatar.
“I think last year, we purchased around $15 billion of US energy output. There is a good chance that this figure will go up to as much as $25 billion in the near future,” Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said after the Trump-Modi meeting.
“Today’s discussions did focus considerably on the possibility of more energy purchases. And it is entirely possible that these increased energy purchases will contribute to impacting the deficit between the two countries as well,” Misri said.
Indian Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Friday that deeper energy cooperation was “widely expected” to feature in ongoing talks between the U.S. and India. He said Indian oil and gas companies will increase their purchases from the United States as demand in India rises, especially the demand for LNG.
Indian refinery sources told the Indian Express there are two major obstacles to dramatically increasing U.S. purchases: the high cost of shipping oil to India from the United States and the incompatibility of some grades of U.S. crude oil with India’s fuel needs. At the moment, India’s refining sector is geared toward processing crude from West Asia and Russia, but industry sources said it was possible to adjust their equipment to handle American crude oil.
“Higher freight, while also a factor in importing LNG from the U.S., is not as major a concern as in the case of crude oil. This is because American gas itself is usually priced at a significant discount to gas from other major suppliers like Qatar,” the Indian Express noted.
As for the military purchases discussed by Trump and Modi, Foreign Secretary Misri told reporters that New Delhi has an intensive process for military acquisitions that could take some time to complete, particularly with regard to equipment as advanced as the F-35 fighter. It took six years for the paperwork to clear for India’s purchase of 31 SeaGuardian and SkyGuardian drones in 2024.
“I don’t think with regard to the acquisition of an advanced aviation platform by India, that process has started as yet. This is currently something that’s at the stage of a proposal,” Misri said.
India has long depended on Russia for the bulk of its arms purchases, a relationship dating back to the Soviet era (and seasoned with a dash of Indian bitterness over U.S. support for its rival Pakistan in the 1970s). Even after Russia alienated much of the international community by invading Ukraine, New Delhi defended its solid diplomatic, economic, and military relations with Moscow.
However, Russia’s slog through Ukraine left it with fewer weapons to sell, creating an opportunity for American suppliers to grab a bigger share of India’s defense budget. President Trump has been very insistent that India should transition away from Russian military hardware and purchase more of its arms from the United States.
