Eyes on defence deals as Donald Trump pads up
Donald Trump set to take over as the US President, all eyes will be on the defence relationship with India. Some high-value Indo-US deals have reached a critical point and major acquisitions are in the pipeline.
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During his last term as the US President, India and the US had pledged to deepen defence and security cooperation by collaborating on co-development and production of advanced military systems. While some success has been made on this front, no major co-production project has yet taken off.
One of the first challenges will be to ensure that a deal for technology transfer and production of fighter jet engines in India takes off despite some last-minute speed bumps. India and the US have agreed on the production of GE414 engines locally, with 80% technology transfer.
However, in recent weeks it has emerged that the price may be a challenge as the US side has vastly increased its offer price from the estimated value. When the deal was signed last year, the estimated price was billed at around $1 billion for the first set of 99 engines to be made in India.
It is feared that fresh estimates shared with the Indian side recently could push this up to $1.5 billion. Given that India requires much more than 99 of these engines — estimates are in excess of 200 — there
