Jaishankar: Every confidence we'll be able to work with whoever wins US election

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday (August 13) said India has "every confidence" that it will be able to work with the next President of the United States, whoever occupies the Oval Office.

The US presidential election will be held later this year.

Responding to a question during a panel discussion at an event in New Delhi, Jaishankar also said in terms of the US election, "we generally don't comment on other people's elections, because we also hope others don't comment on ours".

"But the American system will throw up its verdict, and I am not saying just as a formality, but if you look at the last 20 odd years, maybe a little bit more, for us, we have every confidence that we will be able to work with the President of the United States, whoever he or she will be," Jaishankar said.

Former US president Donald Trump is the Republican candidate against his Democratic rival and Vice President Kamala Harris.

‘Indians are always supportive of the democratic process’

Jaishankar, in his response, also said, "We like elections in this (India) country, we are holding them permanently, so we have just been through one. And, by and large, our elections are real, in many ways, a test of candidates, public, of the system, and we continuously pass those tests, so this is a country where you will always see people supportive of the democratic process all over the world."

The event was the launch of the 'Indiaspora BCG Impact Report' in New Delhi.

‘Grim forecast for the world for next 5 years’

The EAM when asked about his view of the world at present, said it would be "a very grim forecast, for the next five years".

"If you ask me my view of the world, I am an optimistic person and generally tend to think of the solutions to problems rather than problems which come out of solutions. But I would say with a great deal of sobriety that we are going through an exceptionally difficult period.”

"If I were to say give a five-year forecast, it would be a very grim forecast, for the next five years. And, I think, the answers are there, you have what you see happening in the Middle East, Ukraine, what you see happening in South East Asia, East Asia, the continued impact of the Covid," he said.

He also cited the kind of economic challenges being seen in the world, more and more countries struggling, their trade getting difficult, foreign exchange shortages, "so disruptions of various kinds, like what was happening in the Red Sea".

‘Climate events have created disruptions’

The union minister underlined that climate events are not just news, they have globally created disruptions.

"So, if you connect all these dots and ask me what do I see, I see frankly, a very, very challenging scenario. Which for me is a very big case for India-US ties," he added.

And, in this kind of situation, it is really in a way, "those with the willingness and the ability and the comfort of working with each other, who have to step forward. It can't be done the old-fashioned way that you have agreements, treaties, arrangements. Life is moving too fast for that. There is a problem, you don't have an answer in the next 48 hours, you are irrelevant to that problem," Jaishankar said.

‘Rebalancing of relationships’

“Today, it is necessary to go back to the drawing board and look at different relationships and say in this very tough scenario, with these challenges, how does one "rework every relationship to get the optimum out of it," the minister said.

"There will be a kind of rebalancing of relationships, there will be some which will become more important, some which will become more worrisome, some where you start to look at with a completely fresh eye," he added.

The panel discussion largely centred around the Indian diaspora in the US and the role they play or can play in consonance with India's growth story.

Indian-Americans

The EAM was also asked about the idea of dual citizenship for the diaspora community in America.

"Something I read in a useful book on India-US relations...when Prime Minister Nehru first went to America, there were 3,000 Indians, when (Prime Minister) Indira Gandhi went, it was 30,000, and when (Prime Minister) Rajiv Gandhi went, it went to 3,00,000, and when Prime Minister Modi went it was 3.3 million," he said.

“People eventually put a face to a country, when one speaks about the members of the diaspora, sometimes people are not conscious of it,” the EAM said.

Jaishankar described the US as a "very unique society", because it has immigration from so many different sources, it has a way of using its immigration flows to also create a kind of a foreign policy matrix. In that the diaspora for India has been a "positive factor".

"We take the late 90s, as when the India-US relationship started to change course, pick (US President Bill) Clinton's visit to India as an easy reference point and then take it on from there... H1B (visas) did as much as the end of the Cold War to shape the India-US relationship," he said.

(With agency inputs)