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Those tariff clouds? Indians wish them away as they welcome Vice President JD Vance for a four-day visit.
- April 21, 2025, 3:36 p.m. ET
India is searching for any sign that it will be able to dodge the steep tariffs threatened by the Trump administration as it rushes to reorder global trade.
So on Monday, as Vice President JD Vance began a four-day visit, Indians closely examined the images that emerged for any clues — and many liked what they saw.
First there were Mr. Vance’s three young children, dressed in Indian attire as they stepped one by one from the airplane. Then there was the family photo outside a marble-and-sandstone temple, with Mr. Vance, his Indian American wife, Usha Vance, and their children draped in garlands. Capping it all was Mr. Vance’s warm embrace of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who presented the Vance children with peacock feathers.
Given the fickleness of Mr. Vance’s boss, President Trump, it is impossible to know whether these gauzy images indicate that the Trump administration is ready to strike a deal.
But senior Indian officials and some analysts took Mr. Vance’s presence in India as a sign that the United States intended to continue working toward the bilateral trade agreement outlined by Mr. Trump and Mr. Modi when the Indian leader visited Washington in February.
“This visit is very significant, coming at a time when there is unease internationally about what the Trump administration has been doing to friendly countries, including India,” said Happymon Jacob, an associate professor of diplomacy and disarmament at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “This is a visit to reassure India that the relationship is not going to completely go astray.”
