US hopes PM Modi visit ‘consecrates’ India as most important partner: Campbell
Campbell is expected to accompany national security advisor Jake Sullivan to New Delhi next week to firm up the deliverables for the Modi visit.
The United States (US) hopes that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to Washington DC on June 22 will “consecrate” the India-US relationship as the most important bilateral relationship for the US on the global stage and reinforce already high levels of trust and confidence between the two sides, a top Joe Biden administration official has said.

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Kurt Campbell, the Indo-Pacific coordinator of the US National Security Council and often considered the czar of Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy and a key Quad architect, has also said India today figures prominently in the calculations of investment and business groups looking to diversify their supply chains and the visit will offer an opportunity to deepen investment and educational linkages.
Campbell is expected to accompany national security advisor Jake Sullivan to New Delhi next week to firm up the deliverables for the Modi visit.
Speaking at the Hudson Institute in DC on Tuesday, when asked about his hopes from the high-profile nature of the Modi visit with the state dinner and the address to the Congress, Campbell said, “My hope is that this visit consecrates the India-US relationship as the most important bilateral relationship for the US on the global stage and that we effectively make it into escape velocity.”
Campbell said there will be deliverables, there will be discussions on areas where both countries are “united”, as well as discussions on areas where both have concerns. In this context, he talked about India and the US being “imperfect democracies” and both confronting challenges as an issue that will come up.
“But what I have seen in my own period of engaging with India is that one of the most important things that has been developed in this process…is a degree of trust and confidence that frankly was not present a decade ago. And I think our goal would be to seek to build on that.”
When asked about the bipartisan support for the relationship in the US, Campbell said, “Everyone understands the critical role that India is playing on the global stage. That role is not simply strategic. Many business groups, investment groups are looking at India as a part of a strategy to diversify globally, new supply chains, new investment opportunities.” The most impressive diaspora he had engaged with, Campbell said, were Indian Americans who were proud and pleased with the deepening of the India-US embrace.
He added that the visit will open up more avenues for both investment and people-to-people linkages. In this context, he alluded to the India-US knowledge partnership. “Our universities need to train many more engineers and high-tech people and the general attitude of India is me, give me this opportunity. We want to open those opportunities up for greater people to people..across the board.” Campbell added that the visit could be one of the “most important juncture points” for the bilateral relationship to assume its place as a critical and dynamic relationship that the US aspires it to be.
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In a different context, when asked about the tensions between the US’s strategic imperatives and commitment to democracy and human rights as it applied to a country such as Vietnam, Campbell said, “The president is less about outward and ostentatious proselytising about democracy and human rights and more about how our model, our attempt to deal with our challenges can be a kind of model for how other countries may want to deal with their own.” This kind of approach, Campbell suggested subsequently, was smarter and more sustainable.
