US-India relationship at its lowest in 30 years: Indian-American Democrat leader

WASHINGTON: The US-India relationship is at its lowest point in the last 30 years due to US President Donald Trump’s "utterly destructive policies", Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna has said.

Addressing the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum Leadership Summit in Washington, Khanna on Monday claimed that during his recent visit to China, India’s ambassador there had told him that a generation of trust was lost due to Trump’s policies.

"Now, you know I'm not one to mince words. I sort of tell things as they are. The US-India relationship has been at its lowest point in the last 30 years," Khanna said.

"Trump's policies of getting into a war with Iran have been utterly destructive. It has been utterly destructive to the prices of gas in India. Talk to (External Affairs Minister S) Jaishankar if you don't believe me," the California Democrat said.

"I was in China, and the Indian Ambassador there told me that a generation of trust has been lost by President Trump. If we don't speak the truth about the damage this President has done...we are not living in reality," Khanna, a presumptive 2028 Presidential hopeful, said.

He slammed Trump’s policies of threatening Iran and Cuba and conquering Greenland.

"Now you have an America that has forgotten that moral vision, that has a foreign policy of might makes right, threatening not just Iran, threatening Cuba, threatening to conquer Greenland, and we were having dinner as if everything is normal," Khanna said.

"Who cares about the partnerships of this and that when this President is literally destroying America's leadership in the entire world," he said.

"The demagoguery about immigrants, the demagoguery of this President and talking about the lack of immigrants coming into the United States. How can we sit here and not condemn his policies on what he has done with student visas, with the demonisation of talent coming to the United States," Khanna said.

The Democratic leader said Trump talks about the US leading in the field of artificial intelligence.

"38 per cent of the top AI researchers are of Chinese origin. 72 per cent have foreign degrees. This is a President who doesn't understand that we need to be recruiting talent, not turning talent away," Khanna said.

Khanna described Trump as a "lame duck" and asserted that the Democrats were going to win the upcoming mid-term elections and the 2028 presidential elections decisively.