Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi is in the United States this weekend and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has some advice for President Obama.
“Unfortunately, the Obama administration has neglected the relationship and failed to build on the significant accomplishments of the George W. Bush administration in strengthening U.S.-India relations,” Rubio wrote in an op-ed for the Daily Signal Thursday.
India is the world’s largest democracy, according to the Florida Republican who is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — something that must be capitalized on, he says.
Rubio presented three key areas for President Obama to focus on:
• the U.S. and India should further deepen security cooperation.
• the U.S. should encourage greater Indian involvement in the Middle East and East Asia.
• update Indian laws and regulations so the U.S. and India’s economic ties and trade relations can grow further.
Rubio also acknowledged India’s sizable Muslim population and its important “stake in the global effort to combat radical Islam and promote tolerance.”
“Obama should rise to the occasion and put U.S.-India relations back on a path to closer cooperation truly befitting the potential of our two great democracies,” Rubio concluded.
Modi, who won power in India in May, arrives in New York on Friday before going to Washington, D.C., two days later for a grueling schedule of meetings, speeches and panels, according to The Guardian.
Like many other potential 2016 contenders, Rubio has been heavily criticizing Obama’s foreign policy in recent weeks, though the focus on India is unusual, as most have talked more about the Middle East.
