India-US partnership: A defining relationship of 21st century

Washington: US President-elect Joe Biden believes that India-US partnership is the defining relationship of the 21st century, and he plans to strengthen ties between the two countries.

Biden, who has a track record of advocating a stronger India-US relationship, also believes that there is a lot of scope in bilateral trade. When the former vice president travelled to India, he set a goal of taking the bilateral trade to USD 500 billion, which as of now is little over $150 billion.

Biden had expressed his views on India-US relationship in multiple ways and platform during his election campaign as well. He took a strong objection to a remark made by President Donald Trump during the final presidential debate in which he described the air in India as "filthy". "President Trump called India 'filthy'. It's not how you talk about friends and it's not how you solve global challenges like climate change," Biden said in a tweet, two days after Trump during a presidential debate accused China, India and Russia of not taking care of their "filthy" air. "Look at China, how filthy it is. Look at Russia. Look at India.

The air is filthy," Trump had said during the debate. "Kamala Harris and I deeply value our partnership and will put respect back at the centre of our foreign policy," Biden said Saturday as he retweeted his op-ed in the latest issue of ethnic India West weekly. "We'll continue to value the US-India relationship. For Donald Trump, it's photo-ops. For me, it's getting things done," Biden said in his op-ed, in which he reflected on his track record of India-US ties. "Fifteen years ago, I was leading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with Republican Dick Lugar to approve the historic Civil Nuclear Deal between our nations and advance our technology sharing and defence cooperation.