During his recent visit to India, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan extolled the progress in partnership India and the United States have forged over the past four years.
“[W]e’ve joined hands to help halt a pandemic and bring vaccines to the world; we’ve launched initiatives on jet engines, semiconductors, and clean energy; and in a few months’ time, we will come together to put an Indian astronaut into space. These are remarkable achievements, and we made them by harnessing the remarkable innovation of the American and Indian people.”
Additionally, in what he called “the next major step in cementing this partnership,” Mr. Sullivan announced the United States will remove longstanding regulations that have prevented civil and nuclear cooperation between India’s leading nuclear entities and U.S. companies. “This,” he declared, “is a statement of confidence in the progress we have made – and will continue to make – as strategic partners, and as countries who share a commitment to peaceful nuclear cooperation.”
National Security Advisor Sullivan acknowledged that achieving their strong partnership has not been easy.
”We’ve had to navigate our fair share of turbulence. Legacy relationships. Tensions over trade, as well as over human rights and rule of law, at home and abroad. But we’ve navigated these issues together, with our eye on the long game.”
For the future, it will not be enough for the United States and India to simply collaborate in building critical technologies, Mr. Sullivan emphasized: “We will also need to work together to shape the diffusion, protections, and rules that govern those technologies.” That includes establishing a common set of principles around civilian space exploration and artificial intelligence; ensuring that valuable dual-use technologies don’t fall into the hands of bad actors; better securing our supply chains; and leveraging American and Indian innovation to help the world – especially emerging economies.
Finally, said National Security Advisor Sullivan, our partnership can be most effectively sustained and thrive “if we each live up to the values that lie at the core of our democracies:”
“Respect for the rule of law that creates the conditions for dynamic growth. Respect for pluralism and tolerance that powers innovation. And the protection of basic freedoms that unleash the human spirit.”
“These,” said Mr. Sullivan, “are basic truths about how our democracies will grow and flourish.”
