India just secured the blessing of the Trump administration to purchase the MQ-9B drone under a $2 billion dollar deal.

The sale of at least 22 of the MQ-9B unarmed SkyGuardian unmanned aircraft, an upgraded version of the armed MQ-1 Predator drone equipped with multiple radar platforms designed for use in maritime search operations, had been expected during the visit Monday of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the White House.

“We are pleased that the U.S. government has cleared the way for the sale of the MQ-9B Guardian to the Indian government,” Linden Blue, CEO of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, said in a statement. (SkyGuardian is the manufacturer’s name but it most often is called just the Guardian.)

President Donald Trump referred indirectly to the deal in his first White House meeting Monday with Modi. Trump said it “always makes us feel very good” when other countries purchase American-made military equipment. “There’s nobody makes military equipment like we make military equipment. Nobody even close,” Trump said. – DoDBuzz

The US is also offering to sell F-18 Hornets and F-16 Falcons to the Indian government.

Featured image by U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Brian Ferguson [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons