'Neither Country Will Get Everything It Wants—we Will Have To Make Trade-offs'

On his visit to New Delhi on June 26, US Secretary of State MIKE POMPEO engaged in intensive discussions with his Indian counterpart, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar. They spoke about sorting out contentious issues bedevilling the relationship between the two countries, apart from furthering areas where their interests converge. Pompeo spoke exclusively to Group Editorial Director (Publishing) RAJ CHENGAPPA on what he saw as the big takeaways of the visit:

Q Before you came to India, our two countries were literally throwing punches at each other, on the trade front, on purchases of oil from Iran, on arms purchases from Russia, and other issues. You met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and foreign minister S. Jaishankar today as well as national security advisor Ajit Doval. What are the big takeaways, and where would you say India-US relations stand after this?

I’m not sure I’d agree with you about the punch-throwing. Look, these are serious matters, things that friends and partners have to work through, but when I stare at the opportunity between our two countries—you’ve got a prime minister who got more votes than anyone in the history of the world, and you share a value set, a democratic value set with the United States of America. And your people... your people engage with Americans at every level, across the world, in the United States, in India, in other places too. What we spent a long time talking about today was how we can truly make this a different age, a different time. We can be more ambitious in our relationship. And so, these issues, the trade issues, military issues, defence cooperation issues... we can make those positives. I’m confident that we can, and I know President [Donald] Trump is committed to that as well.

Q. And if there’s a big takeaway [from the discussions], what would that be?