Sydney Kamlager-Dove
12/10/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 12/11/2025 13:06
Ranking Member Kamlager-Dove Delivers Opening Remarks in Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Hearing on India
WASHINGTON, DC - Today, Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove (CA-37), Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South and Central Asia, delivered opening remarks highlighting how the Trump Administration has strained our strategic partnership with India at the Subcommittee's hearing on India.
You can watch her remarks as delivered hereand read them in full below:
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today.
I want to commend the chair for holding this hearing on the U.S.-India strategic partnership and leaning into the very important work of our Subcommittee in stewarding this critical relationship. And why is this important? Because the U.S. relationship with India will be defining for both countries in how we are placing ourselves in the 21st century world order.
It is essential to sustain U.S.leadership in all the sectors that will shape the future: defense, climate, energy, AI, space and emerging technologies. Working with India through the Quad helps maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific and enhances the regional influence of the United States and our partners. The strategic convergence between theU.S. and India at a time of heightened international competition is enduring, but it certainly cannot be taken for granted.
Successive presidential administrations of both political parties have devoted years of painstaking work to build trust and deepen cooperation between our two countries. When Trump took office at the beginning of this year, the Biden Administration handed him a bilateral relationship at the height of its strength: a revitalized Quad, a budding defense tech partnership, and a trusted supply chain partner. These were hard-earned accomplishments and the product of strategic discipline from our two countries.
And then what happened? Flush, flush, flush down the toilet-he capital that Americans have built over decades in service of Trump's personal grievances and at the expense of our national interests. And unless he changes course, Trump will be the American president that lost India, or more accurately, that chased India away, while revitalizing the Russian Empire, while breaking up the transatlantic alliance and menacing Latin America. That is not a legacy any president should be excited about having.
When the history books are written about where Trump's antagonism towards India began, they will point to something that has nothing to do with our long-term strategic interests: his personal obsession with a Nobel Peace Prize. While that is laughable, the harm that it will cause is not.
Singling out India for 50% tariffs, one of the highest rates imposed on any country, has effectively derailed leader level meetings between our two countries. Yet the 25% tariff rate that has attributed to India's imports of Russian oil look pretty pointless when Steve Witkoff is striking backroom deals with Putin advisers to sell out Ukraine in exchange for some business investment.
There have been real strategic costs to this protracted trade negotiation. The annual Quad Leaders'Summit, one of the most important unity-projecting platforms for the U.S. and our Indo-Pacific partners, has been indefinitely postponed. This has sent a dangerous signal to our allies and the PRC about the U.S. withdrawal from our most pressing interests on the world stage.
And beyond tariffs, Trump has also attacked the people to people ties between the U.S. and India. The $100,000 fee on H-1B visas, 70% of which are held by Indians, is a rebuke of the incredible contributions Indians have made to science, technology, medicine and arts in the United States.
Trump's policies towards India can only be described as cutting our nose to spite our face, and this is doing real and lasting damage to the strategic trust and mutual understanding between our two countries. Because let me be clear: being a coercive partner has a cost, and this poster is worth a thousand words. You do not get a Nobel Peace Prize by driving U.S. strategic partners into the arms of our adversaries.
We must move with incredible urgency to mitigate the damage that this administration has done to the U.S.-India partnership and return to the cooperation that is essential to U.S. prosperity, security, and global leadership.
Congress understands the stake of this relationship on a bipartisan basis, and I thank the Chair for providing the opportunity to get that on the record today.
I look forward to a robust discussion and I yield back.
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