Sawt Falasteen - Vance lands in 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.

A red carpet welcome with an honour guard and troupes of folk dancers greeted Vance after he stepped out into the sweltering sunshine of New Delhi, where he is set to meet with Modi.

Vance, 40, a devout Catholic convert who arrived in New Delhi a day after meeting Pope Francis in the Vatican, toured a vast Hindu temple with his family on one of his first stops.

The US vice president is accompanied by his wife Usha, the daughter of Indian immigrants, and his three children, who visited the Akshardham Temple dressed in traditional flowing Indian attire.

Vance's tour will include a trip on Tuesday to Jaipur in Rajasthan -- site of the medieval Amber fort -- and to Agra a day after, for a visit to the white marble mausoleum of the Taj Mahal.

More important will be the meeting later on Monday between Modi and Vance.

They are expected to "review the progress" in relations" and "exchange views on regional and global developments of mutual interest", according to India's foreign ministry.

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 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, hit with tariffs of 26 percent before Trump's pause, has reacted cautiously so far.

India's Department of Commerce said after the tariffs were announced 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".

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

The United States is a crucial market for India's information technology and services sectors but Washington in turn 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.

F.AbuShamala--SF-PST