New Delhi: External Affairs Minister (EAM), S. Jaishankar, said on Friday that India is prepared for a high degree of urgency in the trade talks with the US as it faces a very challenging situation with the Trump administration fundamentally changing America’s approach to engaging with the world.
In his keynote address at the Carnegie Global Technology Summit here, EAM Jaishankar said that India’s trade deals would be very challenging as the US is very ambitious and the global landscape is very different from what it was a year ago.
“This time around, we are certainly geared up for a very high degree of urgency… we see a window. So our trade deals are really challenging. And when it comes to trade deals, we have a lot to do with each other. I mean these are people very much on top of their game, very ambitious about what they want to achieve,” Jaishankar said.
The minister also said that just as the US has a view of India, the same way India, too, has a view of them.
“We did four years of talking in the first Trump administration. They have their view of us and frankly we have our view of them,” he remarked.
“The US has fundamentally changed its approach to engaging with the world, and it has consequences across every domain, but the tech consequences, I believe, would be particularly profound,” he said.
“It will be profound not just because the US is the largest economy, the main driver, in a way, of global tech advancements, but also because it’s very clear that tech has a big role in making America great again. So there is a connection between MAGA and tech, which perhaps was not so clear between 2016 and 2020,” EAM Jaishankar observed.
He also highlighted the global power shift that is taking place with China’s rising geopolitical clout over the past year.
“The changes in the United States, is one big shift in the last year. But there’s the other shift, and that is the advancement of China,” he pointed out.
Jaishankar said that the US-China trade dynamics are influenced by trade, as well as technology, and the decisions impelled by China are as consequential as the US.
Highlighting the dramatic changes in the global geopolitical scenario, EAM Jaishankar pointed out that even Europe, which once enjoyed a strategic triangulation with the US, Russia, and China, now finds itself in a stressed situation.
“Five years ago, I think Europe probably had the best geopolitical situation. It had worked out the ideal triangulation between the United States, Russia, and China. Today, every side of that triangle is under stress,” he observed.
Jaishankar underlined how Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have also sought to make a geopolitical impact through technological advancements.
In this context, he said, India is also making progress in the Digital Public Infrastructure and giving priority to semiconductors after many decades.
He urged the experts at the Global Technology Summit to discuss the issue and see the technological side of the country in a positive way.
(IANS)
