President Donald Trump's India Visit: Key Components

US President Donald Trump will be touching down at Ahmedabad around noon on Monday to attend the 'Namaste Trump' event along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at the Vallabhbhai Patel stadium in Motera. President Trump, along with First Lady Melania, daughter and senior adviser in the Administration, Ivanka, son-in-law Jared Kushner and other officials will be on a two-day visit to India starting Monday.

President Trump's entourage boarded the Air Force One aircraft at St. Andrews Base in Maryland on Sunday night.

The US President's delegation will have discussions with its Indian counterpart on a range of trade and security issues. Discussions related to religious freedom are also likely to figure in the interaction.

India and the US armed forces have been working together in a number of areas over the last couple of years. Defence deals, small as they are, form another key component.

President Trump's visit would mark a boost to the trade ties between the countries with India emerging as the eighth largest trade partner of the US. Experts describe both countries as extremely protectionist in their attitude and they could make progress by giving some trade concessions to each other.

With US presidential elections months away, connectivity to the Indian-American population is a key factor in the Trump visit. Though 4.4 million Indians in the US constitute only 1% of the electorate, Indian-Americans constitute an important community in swing states like Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan.

India could also emerge as a counterbalancing force against China in trade to a certain extent, also because infrastructure does not support it currently to a large extent.

However, the optics of the visit will prove to be good for India at a time when there is an economic slowdown and controversies surrounding Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

On the foreign policy front, analysts see the Modi government aligning heavily with Republicans. If Democrats come to power knocking down the incumbent President, they could tend to highlight human rights issues, CAA and Kashmir could become key points in US-India relations, according to observers.