Washington
US President-elect Joe Biden was an early supporter of the India-US relationship and his administration will continue to prioritise 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 as 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 is much speculation on how the India-US relationship will shape during Biden’s time in the White house.
Former vice president 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 in the world”.
Biden’s election campaign website speaks on partnering with India to support rules-based international order in the Indo-Pacific region.
Biden’s global priorities on fighting the coronavirus pandemic and tackling climate change will necessitate close cooperation with India, Ayres said.
“I’ve seen a lot of attention in 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 climate change and clean energy,” Ayres said in response to a question.
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 climate change before us. Our country is on fire, and our coasts regularly hit by hurricanes, while India battles floods, drought, and extreme weather events; and we cannot solve this without dramatically scaling up clean energy,” she said.
“India has emerged as a global leader in solar and it will be in all of our collective interest to renew cooperation on this area the Trump administration set aside,” Ayres said.
Before serving in the Obama administration, Ayres was founding director of the India and South Asia practice at McLarty Associates, a Washington-based international strategic advisory firm, from 2008 to 2010.
