Deal good for India and the world: Jeb Bush

Jeb Bush, two-time Florida Governor and brother of US President George Bush, on Saturday said the ‘toughly negotiated’ Indo-US nuclear energy co-operation deal is “good for India, the US and the world”. While arguing that the energy policy India follows would be “particularly important for continuing to grow at a 9 per cent rate” at a summit in the capital, Bush stressed that he was only speaking as “a private citizen and did not represent the US Government”.

“India and the US… we can no longer depend on unreliable, hostile sources of energy that cannot be depended upon. The current way of thinking has to be altered,” Bush urged. However, in a bid to steer clear of the storm in India’s domestic polity over the deal, he added that he was “very respectful of India’s democratic processes” and was confident “they will result in a good decision.”

Commending India’s recent rise in the global economic stakes, Bush said it would lead to “a transition in the geopolitical landscape just as Germany did in the 19th century and the US did in the 20th century”. He said that the Indo-US relationship was built on “three cornerstones—commitment to entrepreneurial capitalism, advocacy of democracy around the world and the aspiration of enhancing education standards for all our children.”

Asked why the US hasn’t been able to get India a permanent seat with veto powers in the United Nations Security Council, Bush said, “I would vouch for Brazil as well as India… as their economies mature and grow, they will have an incredibly important role to play in resolving global disputes.”