The US views India as a “highly strategic potential partner” in supply chain security-related efforts and welcomes the opportunity to engage with the country, following New Delhi’s exclusion from a recently launched Washington-led initiative on silicon supply chain.
Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg told reporters on Wednesday, December 17, at a Foreign Press Centre briefing that the US is having “ongoing conversations” with India about ways of “deepening our economic security collaboration.”
Last week, the US launched ‘Pax Silica’, a strategic initiative to build a secure, prosperous, and innovation-driven silicon supply chain—from critical minerals and energy inputs to advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, AI infrastructure, and logistics.
The initiative includes Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia. It, however, did not include India. With the exception of India, all other Quad countries – Japan, Australia and the US – are part of the new initiative. Helberg acknowledged that there has been “a lot of speculation” behind India not being included in Pax Silica and denied that there was any link between Delhi’s exclusion and current tensions with Washington.
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“So my understanding is that there was a lot of speculation behind India not participating in the Pax Silica Summit,” Helberg said in response to a question on why India was not included in the Pax Silica initiative and whether it was due to political tensions between the two sides.
“I want to be clear that the conversations between the United States and India pertaining to trade arrangements are a completely separate and parallel track to our discussions on supply chain security. We are not conflating those two things. We view India as a highly strategic potential partner on supply chain security-related efforts, and we welcome the opportunity to engage with them,” he said.
Helberg added that he is in “nearly daily communication” with interlocutors in Delhi and “we are actively determining ways of actually deepening that collaboration quickly.” Helberg said he will be attending the India AI Impact Summit to be held in February, which he said “will provide us an opportunity to me