- Saturday, July 27, 2024
The Indian-American presidential candidate said New Delhi always played it smart and stayed closer with Russia since it gets its military equipment from that country.
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA AMERICAN presidential hopeful Nikki Haley feels that India joins hands with Russia since it doesn’t trust the United States to win and lead. She also said India “played” it smart.
Speaking with Charles Payne of Fox Business News recently, the 52-year-old former US ambassador to the United Nations said she has “dealt” with India and spoken to prime minister Narendra Modi.
“India wants to be a partner with us. They don’t want to be a partner with Russia. The problem is India doesn’t trust us to win. They don’t trust us to lead. They see right now that we’re weak,” Haley, who was born to immigrants from the Indian state of Punjab, said.
She was responding to questions on the US “letting” India buy cheap oil from Russia.
The Modi government continued to buy oil at cheaper prices from Russia despite the West persuading nations around the world to isolate Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
However, the US did not take a stern stand on India over its move. While the West slashed imports of Russian oil, an official at the White House said every sovereign nation, including India, has the right to buy oil or lubricants from any country they like.
“India has always played it smart. They play it smart, and they stay close with Russia because that’s where they get a lot of their military equipment,” the Republican presidential candidate who is having a tough challenge in beating former president Donald Trump to secure the nomination for the November 5 election, said.
She added that the US needs to “get the weakness out”.
According to the former governor of South Carolina, things will improve when the US “acknowledges” that it has a problem.
“We need to start building up our alliances. You must first acknowledge you have a problem,” she said.
She said when Washington asserts its leadership, addresses its vulnerabilities and refuses to overlook its challenges, its allies such as India, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Japan and South Korea will follow suit.
Haley also cited the example of India and Japan, saying they gave themselves stimulus worth billions of dollars to curb dependency on China, a country with which the US has geostrategic and economic tensions.
