Need felt for ties to be bolder & bigger, says EAM Jaishankar after meeting Trump team

Washington, Jan 23 External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar met with key members of the Trump administration on Wednesday.

The minister, who attended President Donald Trump’s inauguration and related events as a special envoy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, met Secretary of State Marco Rubio for a Quad ministerial and a bilateral interaction on Tuesday and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz for the second time since their first meeting last December.

He also met other members of the cabinet, Republican congressional leaders, Speakers Mike Johnson and Senate majority leader John Thune.

“I think now you do understand this was the first day of the administration,” the External Affairs Minister said of his meeting on Tuesday.

“So obviously we had essentially a broad brush conversation. Didn't get too deep into details, but there was, I think, an agreement, a consensus between us that we need to be bolder, we need to be bigger, we need to be more ambitious,” he said.

Speaking of his broad impressions from the meetings, he said, “Firstly, it was very clear that the Trump administration was keen to have India's presence at the inauguration, and they were “clearly prioritising the bilateral relationship.”

“Secondly, it was also evident that they would like to build on the foundation of the relationship, the foundation to which the first Trump administration also contributed a lot to the building,” he said.

He added that President Trump and Prime Minister Modi at that time took a number of initiatives and ‘we have seen that matured in many ways’.

“Thirdly, it was, with regard to the quote, again, a very strong sense that the current administration would reciprocate our desire as well to take the quad further, to intensify its activities,” he said.

He noted that it was the first Trump administration that had “restarted” the Quad — as a group comprising India, the US, Japan and Australia calls itself — in 2017.

The group founded after the 2004 Tsunami had essentially fallen apart by 2008 as Australia left it under pressure from China.

Jaishankar said that the fact that a meeting of the Quad foreign ministers was held on the first day of the administration at work and within hours of Secretary Rubio assuming office “was the message”.