Warning that imposing CAATSA sanctions on India could have a deleterious effect on the strategic partnership between the two countries, US Senators and India Caucus Co-Chairs Mark Warner and John Cornyn have called upon President Biden to grant a waiver on such possibility.
India has remained committed to the S-400 deal despite the warnings by successive US administrations about the looming CAATSA sanctions.
Warner and Cornyn expressed their concerns in a letter on Tuesday over the possible sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act against India over the purchase of Russian S-400 “Triumf” anti-aircraft missile systems.
The senators reminded that the waiver authority, as written into the 2019 National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) by Congress, allows the president additional discretion in applying sanctions in cases where granting a waiver would advance the US national security interests.
The $5.43 billion deal that India signed with Russia in 2018 for the delivery of five columns of S-400 missiles by 2023 hasn’t gone down well with Biden administration, which has already imposed sanctionas against its NATO ally Turkey over the purchase of the Russian anti-aircraft systems.
India Caucus Co-Chairs cited several reasons a CAATSA waiver for India is appropriate, starting with the warning that such move could derail the defence cooperation and the deepening bilateral cooperation in the spheres of vaccines and energy strategy.
It will also embolden US critics within India, giving them reason to warn that the United States will not be a consistent and reliable partner for cooperation.
Spelling out their second reason for demanding a waiver, the senators pointed out the “significant steps” that India had taken in recent years to reduce its reliance on Russian arms imports, buying at the time same time more American arms than before.
According to the data the senators provided, New Delhi bought $3.4 billion worth of US armaments between 2016 and 2020 while Russian arms exports to India had declined by 53% during that period, as compared to the previous five years.
The senators’ letter said comes in the light of the warning of US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman during a visit to India few weeks ago that buying the Russian S-400 missile system is in “nobody’s interest” and dangerous.
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