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Transcript of VP Vance Remarks on US-India Trade Relations and Economy

Here is the full transcript of Vice President JD Vance’s remarks on US-India Trade Relations and Economy on Tuesday, April 22, 2025,  

Listen to the audio version here:

Opening Remarks

VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: Good to see everybody. How are we doing? Good, good. Well, it’s an amazing privilege to be here in Jaipur. I’m thrilled to address the Ananta Centre’s India-US Forum, and I’m thrilled to have you all here with me. Thanks to all of you, the business leaders, decision makers, and, of course, the students for being here. And thanks to our great team at the U.S. Embassy for everything that you guys do for our country.

In the United States, we’re proud of the deep connection between our nations, between India and the United States. Prime Minister Modi, as most of you probably know, was one of the first visitors welcomed into the Oval Office during President Trump’s second term. And like President Trump, the Prime Minister inspires remarkable loyalty because of the strength of his belief in his people and in his country.

Now, we’re so grateful for Prime Minister Modi’s hospitality, as well as the reception that he and everyone else in this country have given us on this first trip, for me, to India. This is my first time visiting the birthplace of my wife’s parents, and she’s, of course, in the front row there. There you are, Usha. Thank you. She’s a bit of a celebrity, it turns out, in India. I think more so than her husband.

First Impressions of India

But I haven’t been here long, but already I’ve been fortunate enough to visit the Akshardham Temple. Did I pronounce that right, honey? I did okay? All right. With my family this morning, as a matter of fact. And last night, Prime Minister Modi welcomed me, Usha, and our three small children at his beautiful home.

I’ve been amazed by the ancient beauty of the architecture of India, by the richness of India’s history and traditions, but also by India’s laser-like focus on the future. And those things, I think this appreciation for history and tradition and this focus on the future is very much something that I think animates this country in 2025.

Now, in other countries I’ve visited, it sometimes feels like there’s a flatness, a sameness, a desire to just be like everyone else in the world. But it’s different here. There’s a vitality to India, a sense of infinite possibility, of new homes to be built, new skylines to be raised, and lives to be enriched. And there’s a pride in being Indian, a feeling of excitement about the days that lie ahead.

A Contrasting Vision for the Future

Now, it’s a striking contrast with too many in the West, where some in our leadership class seem stricken by self-doubt and even fear of the future. To them, humanity is always one bad decision away from catastrophe. The world will soon end, they tell us, because we’re burning too much fuel or making too many things or having too many children. And so, rather than invest in the future, they too often retreat from it.

Some of them pass laws that force their nations to use less power. They cancel nuclear and other energy generation facilities. Even as their choices, the choices of these leaders, lead to more dependence on foreign adversaries. Meanwhile, their message to their friends, to countries like India, is to tell them that they’re not allowed to grow.

Well, President Trump rejects these failed ideas. He wants America to grow. He wants India to grow. And he wants to build the future with our partners all over the globe. And when I look at his audience, or when I visit this incredible country over these last couple of days, I see a people that will not be held back.

Now, the most profound responsibility, I believe, that all of us have is not to ourselves, but to the next generation, to make sure we leave them with a better society than the one that our parents and our grandparents gave us. And this is the world that America seeks to create with you. We want to build a bright new world, one that’s constantly innovating, one that’s helping people to form families, making it easier to build, invest, and trade together in pursuit of common goals.

A New Approach to Partnership

I believe that our nations have much to offer one another. And that’s why we come to you as partners looking to strengthen our relationship. Now, we’re not here to preach that you do things any one particular way. Too often in the past, Washington approached Prime Minister Modi with an attitude of preachiness, or even one of condescension.

Prior administrations saw India as a source of low-cost labor on the one hand, even as they criticized the prime minister’s government, arguably the most popular in the democratic world. And as I told Prime Minister Modi last night, he’s got approval ratings that would make me jealous.

But it wasn’t just India. This attitude captured too much of our economic relationship with the rest of the world. So we shipped countless jobs overseas, and with them, our capacity to make things, from furniture, appliances, and even weapons of war. We traded hard power for soft power because with economic integration, we were told, would also come peace through sameness.

Over time, we’d all assume the same sort of bland, secular, universal values. No matter where you lived, the world was flat after all. That was the thesis, and that was what they told us. And when that thesis proved false, or at least incomplete, leaders in the West took it upon themselves to flatten it by any means necessary.

But many people across the world, and I think your country counts among them, they did not want to be flattened. Many were proud of where they came from, their way of life, the kind of jobs they worked, and the kind of jobs their parents worked before them.