A few days ago, the Biden administration refused to send raw material for vaccines and other medical supplies to India when the country needed them most. Although, after the enormous pressure from the Indian government, Indian-American lobby and the American media, he agreed to not only export the raw material needed for vaccine manufacturing but also extended many other assistances which India had not even asked for.
However, despite all assistance in the latter days, it lost the trust of the Indian government at the time, thus building a crack in India-America relations that were developing smoothly with bipartisan consensus. The American media has acknowledged that the stupidity of the Biden administration would hurt India-America relations, especially at a time when America needs India the most in order to counter resurgent China that is hungry for its crown as a global leader.
The National Pulse, a popular media outlet, published a story titled, “On Day 95, Biden broke Trump’s hard-won trust with India.” The story argued that the Biden administration has weakened the relations with its stupidity and China is already using this as a tool to “drive a wedge between two partners.”
“Amid the surge, the Biden regime had maintained it would not be sending much-needed vaccine production supplies to India. As recently as last Friday, the Biden State Department had defended U.S. restrictions on exports of key production materials, while China doubled down on its offers to help buoy India—and drive a wedge between the two partners,” reads the story.
“India has been the world’s biggest vaccine exporter until now, and the United States’ participation in the Quad alliance vaccine diplomacy effort—an effort to outflank China’s influence in Asia—relies on India’s surplus vaccine production capacity,” it added.
The American public as well as its media was so miffed with the Biden administration approach that the media houses across the political spectrum criticized its approach.
The ‘America first’ approach for vaccination by the Biden administration has hurt the soft power of the United States, and even the media houses that blatantly/shamelessly support Biden have argued for providing vaccines to poor nations. “It is very much in America’s national interest not to cede a critical ‘soft power’ advantage to autocratic rivals like Russia or China… Poor countries will remember who came to their assistance, and when,” said New York Times in an editorial.
The delays in the export of raw material would lead to the death of millions of people in the poor nations, but the Biden administration, which started lecturing the world on human rights, global cooperation and so on from the first day it got elected, has backstabbed the poor nations and killed their hopes.
India, despite being a middle-income country, exported more than 36 crore doses of Covid vaccine and donated crores of vaccines to poor nations. On the other hand, the Biden administration has not only put an embargo on the export of raw material but allowed the big pharmaceutical companies of the United States to exploit the poor nations.
At the time the United States was in need, India supplied everything ranging from HCQ to other generic medicines and medical equipment, but when India needed assistance, the Biden administration initially refused the same under the pressure from big pharmaceutical, although was forced to assist later.
The American media knows very well that the stupidity of the Biden administration would hurt the interests of the United States, and in the 21st century, any country would ignore India at its own risks. The criticism in American media would probably ensure that the Biden administration does not make the same mistake in coming years even if it wants to.
