US Army Lt. Gen. Charles Hooper, the director of the Defence Security Cooperation Agency, said US is interested in boosting arms sales to India. India is modernizing its military and the United States would like to compete for those sales, he said. Hooper, traveling to India with Defence Secretary James N. Mattis, said reporters, “We're very confident that, when given all of the information that they need, they'll choose American systems and American services”.

India has already bought U.S. C-17 Globemaster III aircraft and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. One aspect of the current U.S.-Indian talks is the communications compatibility and security agreement. Once signed, a much larger range of U.S. weapons systems would be available to India.

US has recently baldly informed India not to buy Russian S-400 air defence systems if they do not want to deteriorate US- Indian relations.