The TOI correspondent from Washington: The rhetoric is grating but the reception is upbeat. Amid verbal salvos from President Trump against almost every region of the world as part of his America First agenda, India’s external affairs minister S Jaishankar got a head-start on managing, if not elevating US-India ties, after talks with top Trump aides including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, among others.
It was Rubio’s first meeting with a foreign counterpart hours after he was confirmed as Secretary of State by the Senate and Trump took the oath of office on Monday, and arguably the fastest any administration has gotten off the blocks. In a boilerplate post on X, Jaishankar said Rubio and he “exchanged views on a wide range of regional and global issues” and he looked forward to closely working with him “to advance our strategic cooperation.”
He also made a brief reference to Rubio being a “strong advocate” of the extensive bilateral ties between the two countries, an allusion to the US-India Defense Cooperation Act in which then Senator Rubio called for India be treated on par with US allies such as Japan, Israel, and NATO members with regards to technology transfers and military collaboration.
Rubio also hosted a meeting of QUAD foreign ministers soon after the bilateral, with counterparts Jaishankar, Japan’s Takeshi Iwaya, and Australia’s Penny Wong.
“Our wide-ranging discussions addressed different dimensions of ensuring a free, open, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Jaishankar said, adding that they “Agreed on the importance of thinking bigger, deepening the agenda, and intensifying our collaboration.”
The EAM said it was “significant” that the Quad foreign minister’s meeting took place within hours of the inauguration of the Trump Administration, and “this underlines the priority it has in the foreign policy of its member states.”
“The meeting today sends a clear message that in an uncertain and volatile world, the Quad will continue to be a force for global good,” he added.
Separately, Jaishankar also met Trump’s new National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and said they discussed “strengthening our friendship to ensure mutual benefit and enhance global stability and prosperity.”
The customary statements belied Trump’s verbal rampage in which he has been dissing countries across the world, including many allies, insisting they have been ripping off the US on trade and threatening tariffs to level the playing field as per his metrics.
From bullying neighbors Canada and Mexico, to threatening to take over the Panama Canal and Greenland, to warning NATO allies that the US will not protect them unless they ponied up more money for mutual defense, no one has been spared. Not even Russia and Israel. Trump has scorched the foreign policy turf that countries nurture carefully with the broad assertion that the world needs America more than America needs the world.
But India and other QUAD members — despite wrinkles in the trade front — are in a slightly different basket stemming from US fears of being overtaken by China in the global sweepstakes. Given Rubio’s hawkish views on China, which may well be tempered by Trump’s mercurial penchant for sudden “deal-making,” Washington’s early outreach to the QUAD, rather than NATO or its neighbors, signals a major shift in its foreign policy orientation.
Both sides have plenty of time to work on this. Trump’s second term will almost be co-terminus with Modi’s third term, both having around four years in office, till 2029 January and 2029 May respectively, if they choose to stay till the end of the term.
Jaishankar also met two prominent Indian-Americans in Trump’s inner circles — Vivek Ramaswamy and putative FBI Director Kash Patel — on the sidelines of several presidential galas on Monday. He also met US House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator Majority Leader John Thune, effectively quashing social media trolls who posted misleading videos to say he was insulted at the Trump inauguration.
Jaishankar had a front row seat at the inauguration, arguably one of the best seats in front of the oath-taking ceremony (the billionaires were behind Trump), but left-liberal activists in India widely shared a clip showing a volunteer walk towards the EAM and point towards the exit. But the volunteer was addressing a photographer squatting behind Jaishankar, asking her to move back and not obstruct views. Jaishankar did not even hear or notice that interaction, and his subsequent engagements in the city showed that US-India ties are chugging along steadily — with the inevitable wrinkles — not withstanding the change of guard in Washington DC.
