Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Saturday criticized US President Donald Trump for calling India “dirty” and admonished him for speaking that way about “friends.”
“President Trump called India ‘dirty’,” Biden wrote in a tweet. “It’s not about how you talk about your friends, or how you solve global challenges like climate change.”
She added, referring to her Indian-descent running mate Kamala Harris, “@KamalaHarris and I deeply value our partnership, and we will put respect back at the center of our foreign policy.”
During an exchange in his last presidential debate on Thursday, Trump had tried to defend his record on the climate crisis and his decision to exit the Paris Agreement, claiming that the global agreement was biased for India, China and Russia, which were more polluting. .
“Look at China, how dirty it is. Look at Russia. Look at India, it is so dirty, the air is dirty, ”the US president had said.
“The Paris agreement took us out because we were going to have to spend billions of dollars, and they treated us very unfairly when they put us there, they did us a disservice,” he added.
Indian Americans and surrogates for Biden’s campaign had responded angrily at the time. “His rhetoric has shown time and again that he has disdain for India, as well as for people who draw their heritage from South Asia,” Biden’s South Asians, a group of sponsors and surrogates, said in a tweet.
A congressional aide who spoke about the background had said it was a “strange comment from a president who is trying to woo India as a key part of his national security strategy in the Indo-Pacific.” And it was “strangely timed, especially as his secretary of state and defense (Mike Pompeo and Mark Esper) head to India next week to meet with their Indian counterparts.” The attendee was referring to the 2 + 2 ministerial dialogue in New Delhi on October 27.
Native Americans have been courted in this election like never before. Both the Biden and Trump campaigns have reached out widely with the community, each arguing that they would be better shepherds of the bilateral relationship with India.
There are an estimated 1.9 million eligible Native American voters. A recent community poll showed that an overwhelming 72% of them will vote for Biden and 22% for Trump (a previous poll with a smaller sample size was more generous to Trump: 28% will vote for him, 66% for Biden) .
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