During a significant hearing in the US Congress, Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove launched a scathing critique of President Donald Trump's policies concerning India. Presenting a recent photograph of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin taken during Modi's visit to India, Kamlager-Dove argued that Trump's approach was 'self-defeating' for the United States. She emphasized that there is a price to pay for being a demanding partner, and this particular. Poster of PM Modi and President Putin was 'worth a thousand words', symbolizing a shift in geopolitical alignments.
Trump's Policies Undermine US-India Partnership
Kamlager-Dove sharply criticized Trump, stating that pushing American strategic partners into the arms of their adversaries doesn't earn a Nobel Peace Prize. She stressed the urgent need for the US to mitigate the damage inflicted upon the US-India partnership by the current administration and to re-establish the cooperation essential for American prosperity, security, and global leadership, while these remarks were made during a hearing titled 'The US-India Strategic Partnership: Securing a Free and Open Indo-Pacific' by the House Foreign Affairs South and Central Asia Subcommittee.
Dismantling a Hard-Earned Legacy
Kamlager-Dove further elaborated that when Trump assumed the presidency earlier this year, the Biden administration had handed him a bilateral relationship at its peak, while she highlighted that these were hard-won achievements, a result of strategic discipline from both nations. However, she lamented that all the capital built by Americans over decades was completely destroyed to satisfy Trump's personal grievances and at the expense of national interests, while this suggests a profound concern over the prioritization of personal agendas over long-term diplomatic gains.
The Nobel Peace Prize Obsession and Losing India
Continuing her criticism, Sydney Kamlager-Dove asserted that the bilateral relationship between the US and India wouldn't improve until Trump changes his stance, while she predicted that Trump would be remembered as the American president who lost India, or more accurately, who drove India away from the US while resurrecting the Russian empire, breaking the transatlantic alliance, and threatening Latin America. She declared this to be a legacy no president should be proud of. Kamlager-Dove also alleged that the animosity Trump displayed towards India had nothing to do with long-term strategic interests. But rather with his personal obsession with winning a Nobel Peace Prize, a pursuit she deemed 'ludicrous' yet damaging.
Critique of Tariffs and Visa Regulations
Dove also took aim at the Trump administration's trade policies. She called the targeting of India with a 50% tariff, one of the highest imposed on any country, 'futile'. She noted that this policy had effectively disrupted leader-level meetings between the two nations, while On top of that, she found the 25% tariff on Russian oil imports, ostensibly in India's name, quite meaningless, especially when Steve Witkoff was reportedly making backroom deals with Putin's advisors to sell Ukraine in exchange for some business investments. Beyond tariffs, Trump also attacked the people-to-people ties between the US and India. The $100,000 fee on H-1B visas, 70% of which are held by Indians, was described as an insult to the incredible contributions of Indians in science, technology, medicine, and the arts in the United States. These comprehensive remarks were delivered at the House Foreign Affairs South and Central Asia hearing, underscoring deep concerns about the current state of US-India relations.
