00:00What do you make of the first 41 days of the U.S.'s new foreign policy?
00:10Is it good for India? Is it good for the world?
00:14Well, it's interesting.
00:18I'm a little surprised that people are surprised.
00:23What do you make of the first 41 days of the U.S.'s new foreign policy?
00:33Is it good for India? Is it good for the world?
00:37Well, it's interesting.
00:42And I think, and some of it, I must say in all honesty, is not surprising.
00:51If you actually track it and assume that most of the time,
00:58political leaders at least do much of what they promise to do.
01:06They do not always succeed or they do not always get everything they want.
01:10But as a general principle, when political forces or political leaders have an agenda,
01:19and particularly if it is one which they have developed over a fairly long period of time
01:24and have been very articulative and passionate about it,
01:28then I think much of what we have seen and heard over the last few weeks was to be expected.
01:40So I'm a little surprised that people are surprised.
01:46Now, that said, is it good for India?
01:49In many ways, I would say yes.
01:53My prime minister was in Washington about two weeks ago.
01:58I had accompanied him.
02:01I was myself there for the presidential inauguration.
02:04And when I look at our interests and our expectations of the relationship,
02:12I think there's a lot of promise we see there.
02:16Conceptually, I think we see a president and an administration
02:22which in our parlance is moving towards multipolarity.
02:27And that is something which suits India.
02:32When you say that they are moving towards multipolarity,
02:35do you mean accepting or even encouraging there being many poles of power in the world?
02:42I think practicing and by practicing, promoting.
02:47Since 1945, one tends to think and talk about the United States as US and the Western world.
02:57So it's more like a bloc rather than a nation.
03:02I think what is quite clear is the US's own self-perception is now more as a nation
03:11and perhaps a little less as a bloc.
03:14Not entirely one and not the other,
03:19but definitely the needle has moved in the direction of a more national personality
03:26and a more national analysis of its self-interest.
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