US President-elect Joe Biden was an early supporter of the India-US relationship and his administration will still priorities the defence and security partnership with New Delhi , a key area which has progressed during Donald Trump’s tenure as president, a senior official from the Barrack Obama-era administration has said.
The US media has projected Biden because the winner of the 2020 presidential election. However, incumbent Trump is yet to concede defeat, vowing to mount legal fights in several key battleground states. there’s much speculation on how the India-US relationship will shape during Biden’s time within the White house.
Based on the priorities articulated already by President-elect Biden, i might anticipate that the Biden-Harris administration will still place a high priority on the defence and security relationship with India, the main area that has advanced during the Trump administration, Alyssa Ayres Senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) told PTI.
Author of ‘Our Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place within the World,’ Ayres had served as deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia from 2010 to 2013.
Former vice chairman Biden was an early supporter of the US-India relationship, she said, adding that the president-elect, 15 years ago, viewed the US and India as “the two closest nations within the world”.
Biden had even championed the civil-nuclear agreement with India in Congress, Ayres recalled.
Biden’s election campaign website speaks on partnering with India to support rules-based international order within the Indo-Pacific region.
Biden’s global priorities on fighting the coronavirus pandemic and tackling global climate change will necessitate close cooperation with India, Ayres said.
“I’ve seen tons of attention within the Indian media to the question of whether President-elect Biden will criticise India on questions of democracy and human rights — he has stated that he has concerns, and given his decades of diplomatic experience would be likely to convey his views privately — but I’ve seen little on the question of global climate change and clean energy,” Ayres said in response to an issue .
Ayres expects clean energy and climate cooperation to return to the forefront of the agenda during the Biden administration as was the case during Barrack Obama’s term.
We can see the catastrophic effects of global climate change before us. Our country is ablaze , and our coasts regularly hit by hurricanes, while India battles floods, drought, and extreme weather events; and that we cannot solve this without dramatically scaling up clean energy, she said.
India has emerged as a worldwide leader in solar (power) and it’ll be altogether of our collective interest to renew cooperation on this area (which) the Trump administration put aside , Ayres said.
Originally trained as a cultural historian, Ayres has administered research in India-Pakistan geopolitics.
