Trump administration prioritising relations with India: former White House official

Trump administration prioritizes India relations, recognizing its potential to transform Indo-Pacific and compete effectively with China.

U.S. President Donald Trump administration is prioritising relations with India and recognises that the country has the potential to transform the Indo-Pacific region and is an “important partner” when it comes to competing effectively with China, a former White House official has said.

These remarks were made by Lisa Curtis ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the White House for a bilateral meeting with President Trump on Thursday (February 13, 2025). She has served in Mr. Trump’s first administration as the senior director for South and Central Asia in the National Security Council between 2017 and 2021.

In an online press briefing on Tuesday (February 11, 2025) hosted by Washington D.C.-based think tank — the Centre for a New American Security (CNAS) — on the eve of Mr. Modi’s visit, Ms. Curtis said, “Clearly, the Trump administration is prioritising relations with India.”

“They recognise that India is an important emerging global power and really has the potential to transform the Indo-Pacific region and the world,” Ms. Curtis, Senior Fellow and Director of the Indo-Pacific Security Programme at the think tank, said.

PM Modi will be the fourth foreign leader to visit Mr. Trump in the weeks after the American leader’s inauguration as the 47th President of the U.S.

Within less than a month of the start of Mr. Trump’s second term in the White House, he has hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

Ms. Curtis added that it is “quite notable that India is being given such close attention with everything that is happening domestically here under the new Trump administration.”