The United States has taken note of India’s warning that a new law targeting buyers of Russian energy could affect bilateral ties, but a senior State Department official sought to play down the tensions, saying there were “no sort of hard feelings” over New Delhi’s response.
“Of course, the Indian government has to respond. Congress took a pretty hard approach, especially publicly. You had members of Congress calling out India in particular, so of course India has to respond. We understand that they have a domestic constituency, as do we. “This issue has been discussed at high levels in recent months with various US interlocutors. “The President now has another tool. That does not necessarily mean he deploys it. The issue was also discussed when External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio during the UN General Assembly high-level week in New York.
Like there’s no sort of hard feelings on any of that kind of activity,” the senior US official said, according to a Hindustan Times report. India’s Ministry of External Affairs had earlier said the issue had been raised repeatedly with US officials. Its potential implications for not just the bilateral relationship but also the international energy market have been very clearly articulated by the Indian side,” the MEA said, as per the reports. The law gives Trump “another tool in his toolkit”, while also providing a “broad national security waiver”, according to the official. The official declined to say whether India would receive such a waiver, but said there could be circumstances in which the President chooses to use the authority. And he has a broad national security waiver, and so we’ll see what that looks like in the coming days,” the official said. Jaishankar said he had reiterated India’s interests and concerns regarding the legislation. “Now, with President Trump’s incredibly successful operation in Venezuela, we are moving into a better position that countries like India are going to be able to get access to that market, and that’s something the Secretary (Rubio) has talked about publicly that he’s working tirelessly on, and the Indians are very interested,” the official said.
