While acknowledging differences with the US, Jaishankar said other parts of the bilateral relationship with strong convergences were moving forward. The three issues affecting India-US ties are trade negotiations, energy purchases from Russia, and US assertions of mediation between India and Pakistan, and New Delhi has set the protection of farmers and small producers as “red lines” in the trade talks that are continuing, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar said on Saturday.
While acknowledging differences with the US, Jaishankar said other parts of the bilateral relationship with strong convergences were moving forward. In the face of reports that the Trump administration has paused talks on a bilateral trade deal, he said the discussions are still ongoing since “nobody said the negotiations are off.”
“Right now, I think there are issues. It’s pretty open,” Jaishankar said about the India-US relationship while speaking at a media conclave. “We’ve not had a US president who’s conducted foreign policy as publicly as the current one. That itself is a departure [but] that’s not limited to India.” US President Donald Trump’s way of dealing with the world is a “very major departure from the traditional orthodox manner”, and his application of tariffs, including for non-trade issues, is novel, he said. Jaishankar listed trade negotiations as the most important of the three issues affecting ties with the US and said the Indian side won’t compromise on its “red lines”.
“Negotiations are still going on in the sense that nobody said the negotiations are off, and people do talk to each other,” he said. “Where we are concerned, the red lines are primarily the interests of our farmers and… of our small producers.”
The second issue is India’s purchases of Russian energy, but Jaishankar pointed out that the US has not targeted China, the largest importer of Russian oil, or the European Union (EU), the largest importer of Russian LNG. “When people say we are funding the war or putting money in the coffers of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, Russia-EU trade is bigger than India-Russia trade. So is Europe not putting money into Putin’s coffers?” he said.
“My point is there is a certain inconsistency here. If you look even at exports, India’s exports to Russia have grown, but not that much. I can think of some other countries whose exports have grown dramatically after 2022,” he said, adding that strategic autonomy is about making decisions based on national interests.
