00:00Minister Jaishankar, welcome back to Washington DC and thank you so much for talking to A&I.
00:06If we talk about your visit here in DC, lots of nuts and bolts, give us some details about
00:11what your meetings look like here.
00:13Well, the main reason I came was that there was a critical minerals ministering which
00:20was convened by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, there were a number of countries, I think
00:2650 odd countries which were here, so that meeting took place today, in fact it's still
00:31going on, I took a break from that and that was the principle reason, it was a very good
00:39discussion, critical minerals is a very important subject, the US has been a partner for some
00:46years, today they launched a new initiative called FORGE which we have supported, it's
00:52a kind of successor to the Mineral Security Partnership.
00:56So I think overall, you know, to me it was a good meeting, very productive, very outcome
01:05oriented, very business like and that was the core reason I came.
01:12But obviously if you're coming to Washington you do a lot of other things.
01:15So yesterday I did my bilaterals with Secretary Rubio, I also had a meeting with Treasury Secretary,
01:21Scott Besant, and today because a number of other foreign ministers are here, there were
01:26a whole lot of pull asides, sort of you stand there like you and I are standing and sort
01:32of catch up with where the relationship is.
01:34So it's been a very useful two days.
01:36Probably when you were en route to DC, the big announcement came in, the trade deal between
01:42the trade deal.
01:43Well, just as I direct, yeah.
01:44Right.
01:45Talk to us about, you know, the thoughts on the trade deal, you know, were there discussions
01:49on that ever since the announcement was made?
01:53Well, not directly with me because that's being handled by Commerce and Industries Minister
01:59Piyush Gurdjie.
02:00So what we have is, you know, the Prime Minister and the President had their conversation.
02:09There were some announcements which came out of it.
02:12So thereafter I think there's a detailing of the trade negotiations which is sort of underway
02:22as we speak.
02:24So that's really where things are.
02:26Right.
02:27Is there a timeline that we can expect any time?
02:30It's hard for me to say because I think the Commerce Minister would know that better
02:36because he is the person who is actually engaging USTR, Jameson Green on this matter.
02:42Right.
02:43You did mention about your meeting with Secretary Rubio.
02:46Talk to us in detail about, you know, what you can share at this point, you know, what
02:49those conversations were like.
02:51Well, we did yesterday a fairly detailed review of our bilateral cooperation.
02:57So, you know, it's natural when foreign ministers meet that you discuss what's the diplomatic agenda,
03:05also the calendar, you know, what's going to, what do we expect each one of us to do this
03:10year together.
03:11And so a lot of our discussion was devoted to that, the bilateral side.
03:18But again, you know, look, foreign ministers meet, we talk about business, it's Indo-Pacific,
03:24it was what was happening in West Asia, Middle East, Gaza, etc., Ukraine conflict.
03:29Yeah.
03:30So, so there was a, there was a kind of a global review also what was happening in the Western
03:36hemisphere.
03:37So 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.
03:46Thank you for talking to you and I really appreciate your time.
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