"If you don't have a strong economic foundation to back up the strategic partnership, it becomes like a one-legged ladder. And that is not good for either country. We need to get to the point where both nations feel that their prosperity is dependent on their ties with the other.

The economic dimension thus becomes the second leg -- it complements the strategic leg -- for building the ladder that takes us into the future.

The big decisions here really have to be made on the Indian side because the difficulties on trade arise largely from the fact that India has not made up its mind about the role of trade in its own growth strategy.

Despite improvements after the reforms, India is still not comfortable with the idea of an externally fully open economy. If India makes the right decisions towards that end, many of the problems in the India-US trade relationship will work themselves out. India obviously is still uncomfortable with the idea of external openness because it is afraid that it will not be competitive enough. But if India is to be able to sustain high economic growth, then it must move towards greater trade liberalization."

Ashley J Tellis, senior associate at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank spoke to LiveMint about the trajectory of India-US ties in the past decade.

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