Sawt Falasteen - Vance heads to India for tough talks on trade

Vance's visit comes two months after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with US President Donald Trump at the White House.

Vance's tour includes a meeting with Modi in New Delhi and also a trip to Agra, home to the Taj Mahal, the white marble mausoleum commissioned by a Mughal emperor.

The US vice president is accompanied by his family, including his wife Usha, who is the daughter of Indian immigrants.

Modi, 74, and Vance, 40, are expected to "review the progress in bilateral relations" and also "exchange views on regional and global developments of mutual interest", India's foreign ministry said last week.

India and the United States are negotiating the first tranche of a trade deal, which New Delhi hopes to secure within the 90-day pause on tariffs announced by Trump earlier this month.

"We are very positive that the visit will give a further boost to our bilateral ties", India's foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters last week.

- 'Special bond' -

Vance's visit comes during an escalating trade war between the United States and China. India's neighbour and rival faces US levies of up to 145 percent on many products.

Beijing has responded with duties of 125 percent on US goods.

India has so far reacted cautiously.

After the tariffs were announced, India's Department of Commerce said it was "carefully examining the implications", adding it was "also studying the opportunities that may arise".

Modi, who visited the White House in February, has an acknowledged rapport with Trump, who said he shares a "special bond" with the Indian leader.

Trump, speaking while unveiling the tariffs, said Modi was a "great friend" but that he had not been "treating us right".

During his visit to Washington, Modi said that the world's largest and fifth-largest economies would work on a "mutually beneficial trade agreement".

While the United States is a crucial market for India's information technology and services sectors, Washington has made billions of dollars in new military hardware sales to New Delhi in recent years.

Trump could visit India later this year for a summit of heads of state from the Quad -- a four-way grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

Y.AlMasri--SF-PST