Obama, Singh Hold Joint Press Conference as US Builds India Ties

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24 November 2009 :: J.E. Robertson

India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is in Washington, DC, for the first official state visit of Pres. Barack Obama’s presidency. PM Singh was chosen by the Obama administration for the occasion in order to highlight the complex strategic partnership the US enjoys with India and to build a closer alliance on a range of issues. The bookish economist-turned popular PM is said to have a close working relationship with the legal scholar-turned popular president. Singh praised Obama for “the breadth of his global vision for peace and prosperity”.

Central to the US-India relationship is the playing out of the Obama administration’s “3D” foreign policy (defense, diplomacy, development), as enunciated by Sec. of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Obama took pains to assure the press gathered to hear the two leaders speak that they had discussed engaging Pakistan (India’s persistent military rival and next-door neighbor, also a problematic US ally) with more intelligent development-oriented assistance. Both leaders said the US-India relationship is oriented toward fostering cooperation that helps all nations undermine extremist movements.

Pres. Obama also had to address the domestic constituency, which fears India represents a vast jobs drain, providing cheap highly-skilled labor that deprives middle-class Americans of good jobs at livable wages. He highlighted the element of “balance” in US-India trade, a notable distinction from the US-China relationship, and suggested that balance was key to creating a powerful cooperative relationship with significant mutual benefit in terms of economic growth and sustainability.

PM Singh said that balanced trade relationship “will allow US industry to benefit from the rapid technological transformation” occurring in India. He also said the two nations were working together on a major global initiative “for promotion of renewable energy”. Pres. Obama mentioned a continued focus on sustainability in agricultural standards and processes, as well as related trade, to ensure the food supply both for India’s 1.1 billion people and the world at large.

Dr. Singh also said “The global economic crisis has brought home the fact that our economic prosperity is interlinked”, saying later that his conversation with Pres. Obama this morning had been productive and far-ranging and that he is “very satisfied” with the substance of their talks. The two leaders both focused on the threat of radical extremist movements and the role that international cooperation can provide in reforming counter-terrorism policy across the region to view threats aimed elsewhere (like the Taliban in Pakistan) as potential internal threats as well (a transition in thinking which could see Pakistan and India work together to defeat extremists).

Pres. Obama’s first question came from a US reporter who wanted to know when a decision would be made on Afghanistan troop levels and long-term strategy, and whether Pres. Obama would announce the decision on the spot. Obama said the announcement would come “after Thanksgiving” and stressed the productive and probing nature of the strategic review undertaken among all the armed forces and top military and civilian military policy advisors.

He stressed the need to ensure that the Afghan war effort be an international coalition effort and that domestic military and civilian services in Afghanistan be built up to cope with the security demands of the ongoing crisis. He also stressed that the US and India are strategic partners whose alliance has global implications and can be a building block for peace and security. He said the two were “the world’s two largest democracies”, both “entrepreneurial” and both “multi-ethnic” societies.

Pres. Obama also stressed the “incredible contributions that Indian-Americans have made to the growth and prosperity of our nation, and the degree to which they are interwoven into the fabric of our nation”. He said that mutual enrichment is a sign of the strength of both nations. The two also announced an “Obama-Singh, or Singh-Obama, 21st-century Knowledge Initiative” to foster education, innovation and technological and entrepreneurial cooperation.

Pres. Obama praised Sec. Clinton’s efforts in the region to guard against deterioration in relations between India and Pakistan and to help Pakistan focus on building the reliable, democratic civilian structures that can help to guard against radical extremism. Building communities and ensuring the humane treatment of women, countering brutal treatment from tribal militia and taking on the Taliban to limit their spread and eradicate the movement, are all focuses of that more collaborative diplomatic and security initiative.