2+2 Dialogue may help change current narrative on India-US ties: Experts

WASHINGTON: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will cling talks with their American counterparts Mike Pompeo and James Mattis right here subsequent week which experts right here hope will help trade the current narrative surrounding the bilateral courting amid financial and trade issues.

Pompeo and Mattis will host Swaraj and Sitharaman in Washington DC for the maiden India-US 2+2 Dialogue, which was introduced a year after the White House meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump in June ultimate year.

The July 6 discussion comes at a time of heightened trade tensions between the 2 nations.

Last week India introduced a plan to raise price lists on 29 US imports in retaliation for the US' resolution to incorporate India in its listing of nations covered by means of higher steel and aluminium duties.

During their engagement, the 4 Cabinet ministers are expected to spend time on discussing strategic issues specifically those associated with defence, the Indo-Pacific region and the South Asia policy of the Trump management, wherein India has a key position to play, officers right here said.

This is going to be the largest engagement of the year between the 2 nations.

"It's an enormously positive signal that the 2+2 dialogue is continuing this year. It will provide a good opportunity to change the current narrative surrounding the bilateral relationship," Anish Goel, a senior fellow at New America and a former senior director on the White House's National Security Council instructed PTI.

"The past few months, we have been stuck on sanctions, tariffs, and other economic and trade issues where the United States and India don't see eye-to-eye. This dialogue will allow them to focus on the strategic issues that are really the backbone of the partnership," Goel said in keeping with a question.

Goel expects that key issues comparable to counterterrorism, cyber safety, defence cooperation, and regional safety will dominate the discussion.

Alyssa Ayres from the Council on Foreign Relations and a former State Department professional underneath the former Obama management anticipates that discussions about shared concerns within the Indo-Pacific and recent concepts about what India and the United States can do together--should take centrestage all over their talks.

"But I can't help adding that the deteriorating tenor of the economic relationship has made me worried for the first time in years," Ayres instructed PTI.

"So I hope this backdrop does not overshadow the important and urgent cooperation on strategic ties," Ayres said.

Noting that India-US members of the family enjoyed relative stability within the first year of the Trump management, Rick Rossow from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) seen that negativity now dominates the panorama, in particular on financial issues.


"The 2+2 dialogue must find ways to tangibly move our security partnership forward, and energize our security leaders to intervene in our declining economic relationship before we suffer irreparable harm," Rossow instructed PTI.


"Our leaders must also set in motion a strategy to ensure that new and revisited sanctions programs against Russia and Iran don't disrupt progress in our emerging relationship," he said.


He was relating to Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, signed into law in August 2017 and went into impact in January this year, which mandates the Trump management to punish entities engaging in important transaction with the defence or intelligence sectors of Russia.


India, which does industry each with Russia, is likely to be hit.
2+2 Dialogue may help change current narrative on India-US ties: Experts 2+2 Dialogue may help change current narrative on India-US ties: Experts Reviewed by Kailash on June 26, 2018 Rating: 5
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