The 2 + 2 India-US ministerial in New Delhi next week will review the achievements and set out next steps for global cooperation between the world’s two largest democracies, a senior Trump administration official said.
The last major diplomatic engagement of the Trump administration days before the November 3 presidential election, the two-day meeting, which involved four cabinet ministers from India and the US, will lay the groundwork for the next four years of this relationship, regardless of who comes to power.
Speaking about the conditions of anonymity, senior officials in the administration of the State Department and the Pentagon stated that there was bipartisan support in the United States for its relationship with India.
“The 2 + 2 ministerial will serve as a culminating point in reviewing our many accomplishments as well as setting the next steps for the Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership between the United States and India,” a senior administration official told reporters during a conference. organized by the Foreign Press Center. in Washington DC.
Broadly speaking, they intend to focus on four main themes in 2 + 2 this year: global cooperation, which includes collaboration in public health and work in the Indo-Pacific; economic cooperation, which includes energy and space partnerships; ties from town to town; and defense and security ties.
Noting that in the economic cooperation between the United States and India, they are working together toward economic recovery and to get bilateral trade back on track, the official said the United States’ International Development Finance Corporation has pledged to support more than $ 500 million in investment projects in India and has recently been assigned a Managing Director in Mumbai, who will help expand its investments in India and the region.
The official said joint efforts to develop and produce Covid-19 vaccines have taken off at a remarkable rate.
More than half a dozen US companies and institutions are working on vaccine research with Indian partners such as the Serum Institute of India, the official said.
U.S. government health and development agencies, including the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and USAID, have provided technical assistance and training to Indian partners on a significant scale, including state and local level.
Global cooperation also includes high-level commitments, the official said, adding that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, along with their Japanese and Australian counterparts, met in Tokyo on October 6 for the second meeting of Quad Foreign Ministers.
“Given China’s increasingly aggressive behavior across the Indo-Pacific from the Himalayas to the South China Sea, it is more important than ever that we work with like-minded partners like India,” the official said, adding that states Unidos is also looking forward. to work with India during her next term on the UN Security Council to address these challenges and other pressing issues before them.
Another senior administration official said that the defense relationship with India at the moment is at its best in recent times.
“The progress we have made since India became a major defense partner in 2016 is remarkable. We celebrated the inaugural 2 + 2 ministerial in 2018, Prime Minister Modi visited the United States in 2019, and President Trump visited India in February this year, just to name a few symbolic highlights, ”the official said.
During 2 + 2, the two countries are working to improve maritime security in the Indian Ocean region by coordinating security cooperation and developing partner capacity with countries in the region.
India announced this week that it was inviting Australia, along with the United States and Japan, to the Malabar naval exercise in November. The last time Australia participated in Malabar was in 2007, more than a decade ago.
“This invitation signals not only a strategic convergence among the partners of the Quadrilateral, but also a recognition that regional security requires strengthening allies and associations and working multilaterally on issues of mutual interest,” said the official.
Noting that the information exchange, which ranks prominently in defense cooperation, the official said that the two countries have made significant progress towards the conclusion of the latest founding defense enablement agreement, the Basic Agreement of Exchange and Cooperation. , or SCHOLARSHIP.
“This agreement will allow a greater exchange of geospatial information between our armed forces. We also seek to expand secure communication capabilities between our respective armies, as well as between our ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense, and that also occupies a prominent place in what we are trying to achieve in the information exchange space, ”said the official. .
Regarding military engagement, India and the US are working to build greater interoperability by increasing the sophistication of combined exercises.
The passing exercise between the Indian Navy and the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group this summer is just one example. The recent refueling of one of the Navy’s P-8 jets at Port Blair is another example, the official said.
Over the past year, the US placed a liaison officer at the Information Fusion Center-Indian Ocean Region. And an Indian liaison was placed in the United States Central Command, which both have improved coordination and information sharing between the navies.
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