WASHINGTON: President Elect Joe biden It will continue to strengthen the relationship between India and the United States, think tanks and leading Indian-American experts have said.
“A Biden administration will be mostly positive for India,” said Rick Rossow of the think tank at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“I hope that the most positive areas of cooperation are maintained, especially defense,” he said.
Rossow said that there are two key issues that could really define the ties between the United States and India.
“First, how will the Biden administration handle possible sanctions on India for Russian defense purchases? And second, if the United States is stronger in raising concerns about social issues in India, will it create a rift?” Rossow said.
He also opined that under the Biden administration, India will face less pressure on ties with Iran and cooperation on renewable energy will be highlighted. However, he said, trade tensions between the countries will persist.
According to Ashley J Tellis, Tata Chair of Strategic Affairs for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank, “Joe Biden will undoubtedly continue to strengthen the relationship between the United States and India.”
“His hands will be full … overcoming problems at home and restoring American leadership abroad. Everything else comes second,” Tellis told PTI.
Swadesh Chatterjee, based in North Carolina and a longtime friend of the president-elect, said that Biden really wants India to be America’s best friend, its best ally in the 21st century.
“That’s what he believes in,” he told PTI.
Stressing that the relationship between India and the United States is no longer dependent on people, Chatterjee said it is deep and will improve.
Biden, he said, has always supported the cause of the India-US relationship. Were it not for the role played by Biden, then as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the landmark civil nuclear deal would never have been approved. the United States CongressChatterjee said.
At a time when it was a Republican administration, Biden, as a Democrat, played a key role in its approval by Congress, because he strongly believes in the relationship between India and the United States, he said.
The nuclear deal between India and the United States began in 2005, after nearly 30 years of sanctions imposed by the United States since India tested its first nuclear weapon in 1974. The landmark agreement, signed during the Bush administration, saw implicit recognition, India for the first time as a nuclear weapons power.
Under the agreement, India agreed to separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities and place all of its civilian nuclear facilities under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and, in return, the United States agreed to work towards full civil nuclear cooperation with India. .
According to Ajay Jain Bhutoria, a Biden supporter, the president-elect will bring the United States and India closer together.
Biden understands the issues affecting India – cross-border terrorism, Indo-Pacific region-related issues with China – and supports the rise of India, he said.
“The relationship between India and the United States prospered under the Obama administration and will prosper again under the Biden-Harris administration,” Bhutoria said.
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