Joe Biden pledges closer ties with India
WASHINGTON: Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, on Saturday pledged closer ties with India and a better deal for Indian Americans in a short, policy-laden Independence Day message. He will stand with India in confronting “new threats its faces in its own region and along its own border”, he said.
Kamala Harris, his running mate, struck a personal note. She spoke of her visits to “Madras” (as Chennai was called then), stories she heard from her grandfather of heroes of Indian independence and her mother Shyamala Gopalan Harris’s efforts to instil in her “a love of good Idli”.
Biden’s campaign had earlier in the day issued an expansive agenda on relations with India and the welfare of Indian Americans if he wins in November. The Biden administration will not allow China to threaten its neighbors with “impunity” and will have “no tolerance” for crossborder terrorism.
Biden built on it in a pre-recorded message played at a virtual outreach to the Indian American community to celebrate Indian Independence Day.
Recalling his leading efforts to ratify the civil nuclear deal in 2008 as a senator, he said he had held then that if India and the United States “became closer friends and partners the world would be a safer place.”
“If elected president, I will continue to believe it,” he went onto say. The former vice-president covered an entire range of issues for cooperation in the future over the next few minutes, such as trade, climate change and public health. And also have “honest conversations on all issues as friends”, which is diplomatese for discussing disagreements and difficult issues.