Vice President JD Vance delivers remarks at the Rajasthan Centre in Jaipur, India.
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00:00Good to see everybody. How we doing? Good, good. Well, it's an amazing privilege to be here in
00:14Jaipur. I'm thrilled to address the Ananda Sanders India-U.S. Forum, and I'm thrilled to have you all
00:20here with me. Thanks to all of you, the business leaders, decision makers, and of course the
00:24students for being here. And thanks to our great team at the U.S. Embassy for everything that you
00:30guys do for our country. In the United States, we're proud of the deep connection between our
00:35nations, between India and the United States. Prime Minister Modi, as most of you probably know,
00:40was one of the first visitors welcomed into the Oval Office during President Trump's second term.
00:46And like President Trump, the Prime Minister inspires remarkable loyalty because of the strength
00:51of his belief in his people and in his country. Now, we're so grateful for Prime Minister Modi's
00:58hospitality as well as the reception that he and everyone else in this country have given us
01:03on this first trip for me to India. This is my first time visiting the birthplace of my wife's
01:10parents, and she's, of course, in the front row there. There you are, Usha.
01:14Thank you. She's a bit of a celebrity, it turns out, in India, I think more so than her husband.
01:23But I haven't been here long, but already I've been fortunate enough to visit the
01:28Akshwadam Temple. Did I pronounce that right, honey? I did okay? All right. With my family this
01:33morning, as a matter of fact. And last night, Prime Minister Modi welcomed me, Usha, and our three
01:39small children at his beautiful home. I've been amazed by the ancient beauty of the architecture
01:45of India, by the richness of India's history and traditions, but also by India's laser-like
01:52focus on the future. And those things, I think, this appreciation for history and tradition
01:56and this focus on the future is very much something that I think animates this country
02:01in 2025. Now, in other countries I've visited, it sometimes feels like there's a flatness,
02:07a saneness, a desire to just be like everyone else in the world. But it's different here.
02:14There's a vitality to India, a sense of infinite possibility of new homes to be built, new skylines
02:21to be raised, and lives to be enriched. And there's a pride in being Indian, a feeling of excitement
02:27about the days that lie ahead. Now, it's a striking contrast with too many in the West,
02:33where some in our leadership class seem stricken by self-doubt and even fear of the future. To them,
02:39humanity is always one bad decision away from catastrophe. The world will soon end, they tell
02:45us, because we're burning too much fuel or making too many things or having too many children. And so,
02:51rather than invest in the future, they too often retreat from it. Some of them pass
02:57laws that force their nations to use less power. They cancel nuclear and other energy generation
03:02facilities, even as their choices, the choices of these leaders lead to more dependence on foreign
03:08adversaries. Meanwhile, their message to their friends, to countries like India, is to tell them
03:14that they're not allowed to grow. Well, President Trump rejects these failed ideas. He wants America to
03:22grow. He wants India to grow. And he wants to build the future with our partners all over the globe.
03:33And when I look at this audience, or when I visit this incredible country over these last couple of
03:38days, I see a people that will not be held back. Now, the most profound responsibility, I believe,
03:45that all of us have is not to ourselves, but to the next generation, to make sure we leave them
03:50with a better society than the one that our parents and our grandparents gave us. And this is the world
03:56that America seeks to create with you. We want to build a bright new world, one that's constantly
04:01innovating, one that's helping people to form families, making it easier to build, invest, and trade
04:08together in pursuit of common goals. Now, I believe that our nations have much to offer one another.
04:15And that's why we come to you as partners looking to strengthen our relationship.
04:20Now, we're not here to preach that you do things any one particular way. Too often in the past,
04:27Washington approached Prime Minister Modi with an attitude of preachiness, or even one of
04:32condescension. Prior administrations saw India as a source of low-cost labor on the one hand,
04:39even as they criticized the Prime Minister's government, arguably the most popular in the democratic
04:44world. And as I told Prime Minister Modi last night, he's got approval ratings that would make
04:49me jealous. But it wasn't just India. This attitude captured too much of our economic relationship
04:58with the rest of the world. So we shipped countless jobs overseas, and with them, our capacity to make
05:06things, from furniture, appliances, and even weapons of war. We traded hard power for soft power.
05:14Because with economic integration, we were told, would also come peace through sameness. Over time,
05:22we'd all assume the same sort of bland, secular, universal values. No matter where you lived,
05:29the world was flat. After all, that was the thesis, and that was what they told us. And when that thesis
05:34proved false, or at least incomplete, leaders in the West took it upon themselves to flatten it by any
05:41means necessary. But many people across the world, and I think your country counts among them,
05:46they did not want to be flattened. Many were proud of where they came from, their way of life,
05:52the kind of jobs they worked, and the kind of jobs their parents worked before them. And that very much
05:58includes people in my own country, the United States of America. Now, some of you are aware of my
06:04own background. I actually didn't plan to talk about my background at all until last night at
06:09dinner, while my children mostly behaved. We gave an A- for behavior with the Prime Minister.
06:14The Prime Minister said, I have one request. I want you to talk a little bit about your background.
06:20And so I wanted to do that. For those of you who don't know anything about me,
06:23I wanted to talk about it. I come from, and I'm biased, the greatest state in the union,
06:28in the state of Ohio, a longtime manufacturing powerhouse in the United States of America.
06:34My home specifically is a place called Middletown. Now, it's not a massive city by any means. It's
06:40not Jaipur, but it's a decent-sized town and a place where people make things, which has been a
06:45point of pride in Middletown for generations. It's filled with families like my own, some of whom
06:51called us hillbillies, Americans who came down from the surrounding hills and mountains of West
06:56Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky to cities like Middletown in pursuit of the manufacturing jobs
07:03that were creating widespread prosperity for families all across America. They came to Middletown
07:08in search of what we call back home the American dream. In Middletown, my parents raised me.
07:14My grandparents raised me. They taught us to work hard. They taught me to study hard. And they taught
07:20me to love God and my country and always be good to your own. My granddad, who I called Papaw,
07:27growing up, he typified that. Late into life, he worked as a steelmaker at the local mill.
07:33And I know India has a lot of those. Papaw's job gave him a good wage, stable hours, and
07:38a generous pension. All that allowed him to support not just him and my grandmother, but
07:43his own daughter and grandkids with him. Now, by the time I came around, money was awfully
07:48tight, but he worked hard to make a good living for all of us. Now, I know Papaw and Mamaw
07:53were grateful for the way of life their country made possible. Their generation bore witness
07:58to the formation of America's great middle class. And by creating an economy centered around
08:04production, around workers who build things, and around the value of their labor, our nation's
08:10leaders then transformed their country and made thousands of little Middletowns possible.
08:15The government supported its labor force. We created incentives for productive industries
08:21to take root and struck good deals with international partners to sell the goods made in the United
08:26States of America. But as America settled in to world historic prosperity it generated,
08:33our leaders began to take that very prosperity and what created it for granted. They forgot the
08:39importance of building, of supporting productive industry, of striking fair deals, and of supporting
08:44our workers and their families. And as time went on, we saw the consequences. In my hometown,
08:50factories left, jobs evaporated, America's Middletowns ceased to be the lifeblood of our nation's
08:57economy. And the United States, as it became transformed, those very people, the working class,
09:05the background of the United States of America were dismissed as backwards for holding on
09:09to the values their people had held dear for generations. Now Middletown's story is my story,
09:15but it's hardly unusual in the United States of America. There are tens of millions of Americans
09:21who over the last 20 or so years have woken up to what's happening in our nation. But I believe they
09:27woke up well before it's too late. Now like you, we want to appreciate our history, our culture,
09:34our religion. We want to do commerce and strike good deals with our friends. We want to found
09:39our vision of the future upon the proud recognition of our heritage rather than self-loathing and fear.
09:46I work for a president who has long understood all of this, whether through fighting those who seek
09:52to erase American history or in support of fair trade deals abroad. He has been consistent on these
09:58issues for decades. And as a result, under the Trump administration, America now has a government
10:04that has learned from the mistakes of the past. It's why President Trump cares so deeply about
10:11protecting the manufacturing economy that is the lifeblood of American prosperity and making sure
10:16America's workers have opportunities for good jobs. As we saw earlier this month, he will go to
10:22extraordinary lengths to protect and expand those opportunities for all Americans. And so today I come
10:28here with a simple message. Our administration seeks trade partners on the basis of fairness and of
10:35shared national interests. We want to build relationships with our foreign partners who respect their
10:41workers, who don't suppress their wages to boost exports, but respect the value of their labor. We want partners
10:48that are committed to working with America to build things, not just allowing themselves to become a
10:53conduit for transshipping others' goods. And finally, we want to partner with people and countries who
10:59recognize the historic nature of the moment we're in, of the need to come together and build something
11:05truly new, a system of global trade that is balanced, one that is open, and one that is stable and fair.
11:16Now, I want to be clear, America's partners need not look exactly like America, nor must our governments
11:23do everything exactly the same way. But we should have some common goals, and I believe here in India we do,
11:29in both economics and in national security. And that's why we're so excited. That's why I'm so
11:36excited to be here today. In India, America has a friend, and we seek to strengthen the warm bonds
11:43our great nations already share. Now, critics have attacked my president, President Trump, for starting
11:50a trade war in an effort to bring back the jobs of the past, but nothing could be further from the truth.
11:57He seeks to rebalance global trade so that America, with friends like India, can build a future worth
12:04having for all of our people together. And when President Trump and Prime Minister Modi announced
12:10in February that our countries aim to more than double our bilateral trade to $500 billion by the end
12:17of the decade, I know that both of them meant it. And I'm encouraged by everything our nations are doing
12:23to get us there. As many of you are aware, both of our governments are hard at work on a trade
12:29agreement built on shared priorities, like creating new jobs, building durable supply chains, and achieving
12:36prosperity for our workers. In our meeting yesterday, Prime Minister Modi and I made very good progress on
12:42all of those points. And we are especially excited to formally announce that America and India have
12:49officially finalized the terms of reference for the trade negotiation. I think this is a vital step.
13:00I believe this is a vital step toward realizing President Trump's and Prime Minister Modi's vision,
13:06because it sets a roadmap toward a final deal between our nations. I believe there is much that America and India
13:14can accomplish together. And on that note, I want to talk about a few areas of collaboration today,
13:20how India and the United States can work together. First, perhaps most importantly, to protect our nations.
13:26Second, to build great things. And finally, to innovate the cutting edge technologies both our countries
13:33will need in the years to come. Now, in defense, our countries already enjoy a close relationship, one of the closest
13:40relationships in the world. America does more military exercises with India than we do with any other
13:47nation on Earth. The U.S.-India Compact that President Trump and Prime Minister Modi announced in February
13:53will lay the foundation for even closer collaboration between our countries. From javelins to striker combat
14:00vehicles, our nations will co-produce many of the munitions and equipment that we'll need to deter foreign
14:05aggressors. Not because we seek war, but because we seek peace and we believe the best path to peace
14:12is through mutual strength. And the launching the Joint Autonomous Systems Industry Alliance
14:18will enable America and India to develop the most state-of-the-art maritime systems needed for victory.
14:25It's fitting that India this year is hosting the Quad Leaders Summit this fall. Our interests in a free,
14:32open, peaceful, and prosperous Indo-Pacific are in full alignment. Both of us know that the region must
14:41remain safe from any hostile powers that seek to dominate it. Growing relations between our countries
14:47over the last decade are part of what led America to designate India a major defense partner, the first of
14:54that class. This designation means that India now shares with the UAE a defense and technology
15:02infrastructure and partnership with the United States on par with America's closest allies and
15:09friends. But we actually feel that India has much more to gain from its continued defense partnership
15:16with the United States. And let me sketch that out a little bit. We, of course, want to collaborate more.
15:21We want to work together more. And we want your nation to buy more of our military equipment,
15:26which, of course, we believe is the best in class. American fifth-generation F-35s,
15:31for example, would give the Indian Air Force the ability to defend your airspace and protect your
15:37people like never before. And I've met a lot of great people from the Indian Air Force just in the
15:41last couple of days. India, like America, wants to build. And that will mean that we have to produce
15:48more energy. That's more energy production and more energy consumption. And it's one of the many
15:54reasons why I think our nations have so much to gain by strengthening our energy ties. As President
16:01Trump is fond of saying, America has once again begun to drill baby drill. And we think that will inure to
16:09the benefit of Americans, but it will also benefit India as well. Past administrations in the United
16:16States of America, I think motivated by a fear of the future, have tied our hands and restricted
16:22American investments in oil and natural gas production. This administration recognizes that cheap,
16:30dependable energy is an essential part of making things and is an essential part of economic independence
16:37for both of our nations. Of course, America is blessed with vast natural resources and an unusual
16:45capacity to generate energy, so much that we want to be able to sell it to our friends like India.
16:51We believe your nation will benefit from American energy exports and expanding those exports.
16:57You'll be able to build more, make more, and grow more, but at much lower energy costs.
17:04We also want to help India explore its own considerable natural resources, including its offshore natural
17:10gas reserves and critical mineral supplies. We have the capacity and we have the desire to help.
17:18Moreover, we think energy co-production will help beat unfair competitors in other foreign markets.
17:24But India, we believe, can go a long way to enhance energy ties between our nations. And one suggestion I'd
17:31have is maybe consider dropping some of the non-tariff barriers for American access to the Indian market.
17:38Now, we've talked about this, of course, with Prime Minister Modi. And look, President Trump and I know
17:43that Prime Minister Modi is a tough negotiator. He drives a hard bargain. It's one of the reasons why we
17:49respect them. And we don't blame Prime Minister Modi for fighting for India's industry. But we do blame
18:00American leaders of the past for failing to do the same for our workers. And we believe that we can fix
18:06that to the mutual benefit of both the United States and India. Let me give an example. American ethanol,
18:13we believe made from the finest corn in the world, can play a tremendous role in enhancing our partnership. And I know
18:19our farmers would be delighted to support India's energy security ambitions. We welcome the Modi
18:26government's budget announcement to amend India's civil nuclear liability laws, which currently prevent
18:31U.S. producers from exporting small modular reactors and building larger U.S. designed reactors in India.
18:39There's much that we can create, much that we can do together. We believe that American energy can help
18:45realize India's nuclear power production goals, and this is very important, as well as its AI ambitions.
18:52Because as the United States knows well, and I know that India knows well, there is no AI future without
18:59energy security and energy dominance. And that brings me to my final point of collaboration. I believe that the
19:06technological collaboration between our countries is going to extend well beyond defense and energy.
19:12The U.S.-India Trust Initiative that President Trump and Prime Minister Modi have launched will be a
19:17cornerstone of the partnership in the future. It will build on billions of dollars of planned
19:23investments that American companies have already announced across India. In the years to come,
19:29we're going to see data centers, pharmaceuticals, undersea cables, and countless other critical
19:34goods being developed and being built because of the American and Indian economic partnership.
19:40And I'll say it again, I think that our nations have so much to gain by investing in one another.
19:46America investing in India, and of course, India investing in the United States of America.
19:51And I know that Americans, our people, are excited about that prospect, and that President Trump and I are
19:58looking forward to stronger ties. Americans want further access to Indian markets. This is a great place to
20:04do business, and we want to give our people more access to this country. And Indians, we believe,
20:09will thrive from greater commerce than the United States. This is very much a win-win partnership.
20:16It certainly will be far into the future. And as I know this audience knows better than most,
20:23neither Americans nor Indians are alone in looking to scale up their manufacturing capacity.
20:29The competition extends well beyond cheap consumer goods and into munitions, energy, infrastructure,
20:38and all sorts of other cutting-edge technologies. I believe that if our nations fail to keep pace,
20:44the consequences for the Indo-Pacific, but really the consequences for the entire world,
20:49will be quite dire. And this, again, is where India and the United States have so much to offer one
20:54another. We've got great hardware, the leading artificial intelligence hardware in the world.
21:00You have one of the most exciting startup technology infrastructures anywhere in the world.
21:06There's a lot to be gained by working together. And this is why President Trump and I both welcome
21:12India's leadership in a number of diplomatic organizations, but of course, in the Quad.
21:17We believe a stronger India means greater economic prosperity, but also greater stability across
21:23the Indo-Pacific, which is, of course, a shared goal for all of us in this room. And it's a shared goal
21:29for both of our countries. Now, I want to close with one last story, or maybe a couple of stories. So,
21:36you know, my son, Ewan, is seven years old. He's our firstborn son. And yesterday, after we had dinner at the
21:45prime minister's house, the food was so good, and the prime minister was so kind to our three children,
21:51that Ewan came up to me afterwards and he said, Dad, you know, I think maybe I could live in India.
21:56And, but I think after about 90 minutes in the Jaipur sun today at the great palace,
22:05he suggested that maybe we should move to England. So you take the good with the bad here.
22:10But I want to talk about Prime Minister Modi, because I think he's a special person. I first met
22:14Prime Minister Modi at the AI Action Summit in February. And we had a lot of important
22:19discussions on AI and other policies to prepare for. The prime minister also managed to figure out
22:25that my son Vivek was actually turning five years old on the trip. This was in Paris just a couple
22:30of months ago. So think about this. Amid a huge international policy conference, he took the time
22:36to stop by where I was staying, wish our second son Vivek a happy birthday, and even bring him a gift.
22:43Usha and I were both genuinely touched by his graciousness. And we've been even more impressed
22:49by his warmth since we arrived in India. Now, it's interesting. Some of you may know that when
22:54you're a politician, your kids spend almost as much time in the limelight as you do. And the great
23:01things about kids is they are brutally honest. They're brutally honest with everybody, whether you
23:05want them to be or not. And our seven year old, our five year old, and then our three year old baby
23:09girl Mirabelle, it's interesting. They have only really been, they've only really attached themselves
23:16to, they've only really liked, I should say, they've only really built a rapport with two world leaders.
23:22The first, first of course, is President Trump. He just has a certain energy about them, about him.
23:28But Prime Minister Modi, it's the exact same thing. Our kids just like him. And I think that because
23:34his kids are such good, strong of characters, I just like Prime Minister Modi, too. And I think
23:38it's a great foundation for the future of our relationship.
23:44I could tell then, I could tell when Prime Minister Modi came over a couple of months ago. And I believe
23:49today that he is a serious leader who has thought deeply about India's future prosperity and security,
23:56not just for the rest of his time in office, but over the next century.
23:59And I want to end by making a simple overarching point. We are now officially one quarter into the
24:0821st century, 25 years in 75 years to go. And I really believe that the future of the 21st century
24:18is going to be determined by the strength of the United States-India partnership. I believe, thank you.
24:25I believe that if India and the United States work together successfully, we are going to see a 21st
24:37century that is prosperous and peaceful. But I also believe that if we fail to work together successfully,
24:43the 21st century could be a very dark time for all of humanity. So I want to say it's clear to me,
24:50as it is to most observers, that President Trump, of course, intends to rebalance America's economic
24:57relationship with the rest of the world. That's going to cause, fundamentally will cause profound
25:02changes within our borders in the United States, but of course, with other countries as well.
25:08But I believe that this rebalancing is going to produce great benefits for American workers.
25:15It's going to produce great benefits for the people of India. And because our partnership is so
25:21important to the future of the world, I believe President Trump's efforts, joined, of course,
25:26by the whole country of India and Prime Minister Modi, will make the 21st century the best century in
25:33human history. Let's do it together. God bless you, and thank you for having me.