US vice president JD Vance will visit India next week with his family for meetings with the top leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to discuss shared economic and geopolitical priorities and to participate in cultural engagements aimed at introducing his children to the country.
The trip to India will be the second leg of a week-long two-nation tour beginning on April 18 that will first take Vance to Italy, the White House announced on Wednesday. This is his first visit to India.
Vance and his family will arrive in India in the morning of April 21, people familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity. Modi has a busy schedule next week as he is set to travel to Saudi Arabia during April 22-23, leaving only April 21 as the day for substantial engagements with Vance and his family, the people said.
Soon after their arrival, Vance and his family will visit the Red Fort. In the afternoon, Vance will meet National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, external affairs minister S Jaishankar and BJP president JP Nadda, the people said.
The Prime Minister will interact with Vance and his family – wife Usha, the first Hindu American second lady, sons Ewan and Vivek and daughter Mirabel – and will host them for a formal dinner at his official residence in the evening, the people said.
The visit by Vance and his family has more of a personal element and is aimed at introducing his children to India, with limited official engagements, the people said.
Vance met Usha Chilukuri, whose parents migrated to the US, while attending Yale Law School and the couple married in 2014.
The new tariffs of the Donald Trump administration and India-US negotiations on a bilateral trade deal are expected to figure in Vance’s official meetings.
The White House said in a readout that Vance will discuss “shared economic and geopolitical priorities with leaders” in Italy and India.
Vance and his family will visit New Delhi, Jaipur and Agra. They will also participate in engagements at cultural sites, the readout added.
The external affairs ministry said in a statement the visit will be an opportunity to review progress in bilateral relations and implementation of the India-US joint statement issued on February 13 during Modi’s visit to the US. The two sides will exchange views on regional and global developments, it said.
The people said the Vances will travel to Jaipur on April 22 and visit key tourist sites and have some engagements. They will travel to Agra the next day to visit the Taj Mahal, they said.
While US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was earlier expected to be in India on April 21, the people said his visit has been called off as he has been under a cloud since the Signal group chat controversy, when he added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to a group chat that included Vance and featured discussions of military action against Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Waltz was expected to participate in the India-US Forum, an interaction behind closed doors backed by the external affairs ministry, and co-chair with his Indian counterpart the first meeting of TRUST (Transforming the Relationship Utilizing Strategic Technology), which was launched at a meeting between President Donald Trump and Modi in Washington in February and is a rebranded version of the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET).
The people said there are no plans as of now for Vance to step in for Waltz at the India-US Forum.
Vance’s visit follows a trip to India by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who was the first member of Trump’s cabinet to travel to New Delhi in March for a security conclave and the Raisina Dialogue.
In Italy, Vance will meet Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin. He will also participate in Holy Week events ahead of Easter Sunday.
This will be Vance’s third foreign trip since taking office. Vance visited Paris and Munich in February, when his remarks at public events criticising European allies for censorship of free speech and defence spending ruffled many feathers as they seen as supportive of right wing forces.
Vance visited Greenland in March with his wife and Waltz but received a frosty reception because of the Trump administration’s interest in taking control of the self-governing territory of Denmark.