28 March 2017

News Story: Senators press Mattis, Tillerson on India defense deals

CGI of the F-16IN developed for India's MMRCA Competition
By: Joe Gould

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan pair of key senators are pressing the Trump administration to approve two defense deals between the U.S. and India, arguing that U.S. jobs hang in the balance. 

Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Mark Warner, D-Va., jointly sent letters to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The lawmakers pressed, in one letter, to approve co-production of Lockheed Martin’s F-16 in India and, in the other letter, to approve the export of General Atomics’ Guardian, a nonlethal maritime version of the MQ-9 Reaper. 

The two lawmakers co-chair the U.S.-India caucus, while Cornyn is the No. 2 Republican in the Senate and Warner is vice chairman on the Senate Intelligence Committee. For the defense industrial base, the F-16 deal would help sustain the existing fleet, they argue, while the potential Guardian sale is worth $2 billion. 

Read the full story at DefenseNews