India-US relations are global, but they should also be local, the assistant secretary says.
India-US relation is not going to deteriorate on fronts that are currently active as it will not be of interest to both countries, said Nisha Desai Biswal, the Indian American Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia.
Desai, while speaking at an event hosted by Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said that the new administration may have different priorities but it will be of interest to the burgeoning bilateral relationship between India and the US.
“India-US relations will have to move beyond government to government. India-US relations are global, but they should also be local,” she said.
Desai stressed the importance of “state-to-state” relationship building during the occasion of the launch of “US-India State and Urban Initiative” conducted by CSIS.
“Every successive administration is going to add some new areas of cooperation. The US-India relations are so broad, so complex, and so dynamic that pulling back on any aspect will not be in the interest of anyone,” Biswal said.
“The next administration will understand that, and might want to build on, and might want to add their own new areas of focus. That doesn’t mean that they will move away from what has already been built,” Biswal said in response to a question.
“The demand in India for new technologies and capital is high, and the desire in many places in the US to seek new areas of partnership with India is also high,” she said pointing out that India-US economic ties are responding to demands that already exist.