Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), co-chair of the Senate India Caucus, is urging the U.S. executive branch to authorize the sale of unmanned aerial vehicles to India.
Speaking at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., the week of Feb. 27, Warner specifically mentioned the Guardian, a maritime variant of the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) Predator B, as an example of a UAV that should be approved for export to the South Asian country. California-based GA-ASI, part of General Atomics, recently moved to open an office in New Delhi to promote such potential sales.
“Since this drone is very compatible with lots of U.S. military” equipment, it “would add a whole new area of collaboration between our two countries in the defense space,” Warner said.
The senator is writing a letter to the Trump administration to underscore his support for UAV exports to India, according to a Warner spokeswoman. The letter will likely be sent to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Warner and Sen. Jon Cornyn (R-Texas), the other Senate India Caucus co-chair, sent such a letter in September to then-Secretary of State John Kerry.
Warner also endorsed further expansion of U.S.-Indian defense ties. He noted that Boeing [BA] and Lockheed Martin [LMT] are vying to sell F/A-18 and F-16 fighter jets, respectively, to India and that the two countries are considering collaborating on Indian production of an aircraft carrier. He said India might need to relax its offset requirements to allow some deals to take place.
The United States and India have been working for years to forge closer military relations. In June 2016, the United States designated India as a “major defense partner,” meaning it would elevate defense trade and technology sharing with India to a level commensurate with its closest allies.
“One of the areas I’ve worked on is how we can increase the defense trade agreements,” Warner said. “We’ve made some progress in that field. I think there’s more to be done.”
Warner pledged to encourage the Trump administration to designate someone to facilitate U.S.-India defense trade. The fiscal year 2017 defense authorization act calls for such an appointment to ensure U.S. interagency reviews do not bog down defense exports to India.
When former Defense Secretary Ash Carter was deputy secretary, he was the “go-to guy to help move some of this process along,” Warner said. Having “someone senior, someone that carries clout with all of these various different agencies is really important.”