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United States President Donald Trump has signed into law an annual defence policy bill that highlights broadening America’s engagement with India, including through the Quad to advance the shared objective of a free and open Indo-Pacific region and address the challenge posed by China.
“The Act will enable the DoW to carry out my Peace Through Strength agenda, protect the homeland from domestic and foreign threats, and strengthen the defence industrial base, while eliminating funding for wasteful and radical programmes that undermine the warfighting ethos of our Nation’s men and women in uniform,” Trump said in a statement.
The Act outlines ‘sense of Congress on Defence Alliances and Partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region’.
Under this, the Secretary of Defence should continue efforts that strengthen US defence alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region to ‘further the comparative advantage of the US in strategic competition with China’.
This includes ‘broadening US engagement with India, including through the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue to advance the shared objective of a free and open Indo-Pacific region through bilateral and multilateral engagements and participation in military exercises, expanded defence trade, and collaboration on humanitarian aid and disaster response; and to enable greater cooperation on maritime security’.
The Quad or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, comprising India, the US, Japan and Australia, was set up in 2017 to counter China’s aggressive behaviour in the Indo-Pacific region.
