Jaishankar meets US commerce secretary

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar held a meeting with US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, during which they discussed ways to strengthen bilateral trade and the two countries’ investment relationship.

Jaishankar — on his first visit to the US capital since the third Modi government took office — will also meet other Cabinet-rank and senior Biden administration officials.

In a post on X early on Tuesday, the external affairs minister said, “We discussed semiconductors, iCET, critical minerals, trusted partnerships and supply chain resiliency. Value the strides we are making in our tech collaboration and economic partnership.” In a readout of Monday’s meeting, the US Department of Commerce said Jaishankar and Raimondo discussed the US-India CEO Forum and the US-India Commercial Dialogue.

These initiatives — led by the US Department of Commerce and the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry — aim to strengthen the US-India trade and investment relationship.

The readout said, “They also commended the progress to date under the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) and reiterated their shared commitment to continuing to advance the work to operationalise the IPEF agreements.”