US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Minister of External Affairs Dr S Jaishankar on Wednesday, 26 June. His visit comes at a time when the relationship between both the countries is volatile.
Trump and Modi are scheduled to meet for bilateral talks in Osaka, Japan at the upcoming G20 summit.
With Trumps aggressive stance on international issues, where do India-US ties stand right now?
BloombergQuint spoke with Meera Shankar, Former Ambassador to the US, Virendra Gupta, Former Deputy Director, Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis and Bharat Karnad, National Security Studies, Centre for Policy Research to gauge the situation.
Divergence of Perspectives
Speaking on the divergence between India and US’ perspectives, Meera Shankar stressed that India should keep its own objectives in mind.
“Clearly, for India, we need to have the freedom of choice to buy weapons from any country or any system that we find appropriate.”Meera Shankar, former Indian ambassador to the US
She said that even though Pompeo had said that the United States will help India with its national security concerns, India should still have the freedom of choice.
“We will need to engage in a spirit of give and take to try and find a way forward,” she added.
‘H-1B is a Non Issue’
Asked about the impact of the restriction on H-1B visas granted by the US, Virendra Gupta said that the issue was irrelevant to long term India-US ties.
“It could be an emotive issue with people who want jobs in America, but as far as our national interests are concerned it is a non issue in my view, because it is a flight of trained manpower out of our country.”Virendra Gupta, former deputy director, IDSA
He also attributed most of the trade issues to mere posturing.
In his view the US was ascribing immense importance to its relations with India as their Secretary of State, who is a very high ranking official, visited India to prepare for the G20 summit talks.
“We need America and America needs us,” he said.
‘All Take and No Give’
Bharat Karnad was more skeptic about the visit and India-US ties in general. In his opinion India has been adopting a weak stance.
“The art of deal-making that is Trump’s supposed specialty is all take and no give. Unfortunately the Indian method is all give and no take.”Bharat Karnad, Centre for Policy Research
He said that this visit that some take as the US ascribing importance to us, is a small gesture we are easily impressed by. According to him, Trump’s administration is “steamrolling Indian policy” into compliance when it comes to issues like Iran and Afghanistan.
In his opinion, India should take a page out of Trump’s book and be slightly more disruptive and less accommodating, because “disruptive policies give results”.
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