The India-U.S. Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership is a high-level diplomatic concept and designation for the bilateral relationship, not an act or a scheme. It was officially accepted as a new designation in February 2020 during the state visit of former U.S. President Donald J. Trump to India to meet Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. This elevation was an upgrade from the "strategic partnership" that had existed since 2005, acknowledging India's growing role in global geopolitics.
The partnership is anchored in shared democratic values, mutual trust, and converging interests across nearly all areas of human endeavor. Its mechanism involves deepening cooperation across multiple pillars, including defense, technology, trade, and energy. Key provisions include enhanced defense and security cooperation through greater maritime and space domain awareness, joint exercises, and collaboration on co-development and co-production of advanced defense components. The U.S. reaffirmed India's status as a Major Defense Partner, which affords India the highest consideration for procurement and technology transfer.
The partnership connects to several related concepts and institutions, such as the 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue and multilateral groupings like the Quad and I2U2. A significant recent development is the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET), which focuses on cooperation in space, semiconductors, and advanced telecommunications. The relationship was recently strengthened by India's inclusion in the U.S. Department of Commerce's Strategic Trade Authorization Tier-1 license exception on July 30, 2018, facilitating high-technology commerce.