A US Congressional Report says that the US Congress is broadly positive towards Indo-US strategic and commercial partnership despite many areas of serious discord. It underlined that the bilateral engagements are unprecedented. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) report was prepared for US lawmakers before the just-concluded visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US. A 43-page report, says that a stronger and more prosperous democratic India is good for the US and the US Congress and two successive US administrations have acted both to broaden and deepen America’s engagement with New Delhi.

According to CRS, differences over US immigration law, especially in the area of non-immigrant work visas, remain unresolved which New Delhi views as trade disputes. India’s intellectual property protection regime comes under regular criticism from US officials and firms. Bilateral trade and investment have increased while a relatively wealthy Indian-American community is exercising new-found domestic political influence, and Indian nationals account for a large proportion of foreign students on American college campuses and foreign workers in the information technology sector, the Report added. The Report further says cooperation in the fields of defence trade, intelligence and counter terrorism is vastly superior but stumbling blocks among others are civil nuclear commerce, obstacles from Indian bureaucracy, limited governmental capacity, difficult procurement process and incompatible federal institutions and America’s on-going security relationship with and aid to Pakistan, India’s key rival. The recent announcement of US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change, the Report said, dismayed many in India and brought into question significant ongoing bilateral collaboration in the energy field.