00:00Minister Jaishankar, welcome back to Washington DC and thank you so much for
00:04talking to ANI. If we talk about your visit here in DC, lots of nuts and
00:10bowls. Give us some details about you know what your meetings look like here.
00:13Well the main reason I came was that there was a critical minerals
00:19ministering which was convened by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. There were
00:24a number of countries I think about 50 odd countries which were here so that
00:28meeting took place today. In fact it's still going on. I took a break from that and that
00:36that was the principle reason to the very good discussion. Critical minerals is a
00:41very important subject. The US has been a partner for some years. Today they
00:48launched a new initiative called FORGE which we have supported. It's a kind of
00:52successor to the mineral security partnership. So I think overall you know to
01:01me it was a good meeting, very productive, very outcome-oriented, very business-like and
01:07that was the the core reason I came. But obviously if you're coming to Washington you
01:13do a lot of other things. So yesterday I did my bilaterals with Secretary Rubio. I
01:19also had a meeting with Treasury Secretary Scott Bassett. And today because a number
01:24of other foreign ministers are here, there were a whole lot of, you know, pull asides. So
01:30you stand there like you and I are standing and sort of catch up with where the relationship is. So it's been a very useful two days.
01:37Probably when you were en route to DC the big announcement came in, the trade deal between...
01:42Well, just as I arrived, yeah. Right. Talk to us about, you know, the thoughts on the trade deal. You know, were there discussions on that ever since the announcement was made?
01:52Well, not directly with me, because that's being handled by Commerce and Industries Minister
01:59Bish Gurdjie. So what we have is, you know, the Prime Minister and the President had their conversation. There were some announcements which came out of it. So thereafter I think there's a detailing of the trade negotiations which is, which is sort of underway.
02:21As we speak. So that's really where things are.
02:26Right. Is there a timeline that we can expect any time?
02:29It's hard for me to say because I think the Commerce Minister would know, would know that better because he's the person who's actually engaging USTR, Jameson Green on this matter.
02:42Right. You did mention about your meeting with Secretary Rubio. Talk to us in detail about, you know, what you can share at this point, you know, what those conversations were like.
02:50Well, we did yesterday a fairly detailed review of our bilateral cooperation. So, you know, it's natural when foreign ministers meet that you discuss what's the diplomatic agenda.
03:04Also the calendar, you know, what's going to, what do we expect each one of us to do this year together. And so a lot of our discussion was devoted to that, the bilateral side.
03:18But again, you know, look, foreign ministers meet, we talk our business, it's Indo-Pacific, it was what was happening in West Asia, Middle East, Gaza, etc., Ukraine conflict.
03:29So, so, so there was a, there was a kind of a global review, also what was happening in the Western Hemisphere.
03:36So we just, in a sense, we discussed the world, we discussed our relationship.
03:41And, you know, it was a very open, sort of forthcoming conversation, normally.
03:46Thank you for talking to you and I really appreciate your time.
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