Top Republican Senator John McCain regards Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the best bet to transform US-India partnership after a series of disappointments voiced by both sides.
“The election of Prime Minister Modi has transformational potential – for India and our partnership. Indians are hungry for bold change, and they gave a once-in-a-generation mandate to a leader who is eager to deliver it. This change will likely extend to India’s foreign policy, including its relationship with the United States,” McCain said in an address to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
McCain said his own impression was that Modi sees a strategic partnership with America as integral to his domestic goal of revitalizing India.
He said the United States and India must invest in one another’s success and definite priorities to make a success of their strategic partnership instead of devolving into a transactional relationship and being “overly driven by domestic politics and overly focused on extracting concessions from one another”.
He made a strong pitch for India and the US negotiating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA). For the past many years, the two have been trying to negotiate a Bilateral Investment Treaty. “But why not aim instead for a Free Trade AgreementIJ India and the United States have, or are negotiating, FTAs with every other major global trading partner, so we are on course to discriminate only against one another. How does that make senseIJ Our goal should be to produce a roadmap for concluding an FTA and to start negotiating it,” he said.