S Jaishankar attends Donald Trump’s swearing-in, meets key members of his team

During the event, Jaishankar met the 56th Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune. He also interacted with the nominee for the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the Trump administration, Kash Patel.

“Delighted to meet Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader John Thune at the evening function,” Jaishankar said.

A great honour to represent India at the inauguration ceremony of @POTUS President Donald J Trump and @VP Vice President JD Vance in Washington DC today.

🇮🇳 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/tbmAUbvd1r

— Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) January 20, 2025

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He also met Javier Milei, the President of Argentina, and conveyed greetings to him from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Glad to meet President Javier Milei of Argentina. Conveyed greetings of PM Narendra Modi,” Jaishankar added.

Earlier, Jaishankar had said that it was a “great honour” to represent India at Trump’s inauguration ceremony. He also met entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy during the church service before the inauguration.

Jaishankar was seated in the audience at Capitol Hill as the special envoy of PM Modi. This is his second visit to the US within the last 30 days; he had visited the country in the last week of December and met the incoming Trump administration officials as part of an outreach from Delhi to Washington DC.

Ahead of Trump’s inauguration, the Quad became the dominant theme of Jaishankar’s meetings with Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya in Washington DC on Sunday. While Jaishankar referenced Quad in public articulation about both meetings, Wong described Quad as “an iron-clad commitment” and the Japanese foreign ministry said discussions were held on “efforts by the Quad”.