President Donald Trump signs an executive order on birthright citizenship in the Oval Office of the White House on January 20, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP
Shortly after being sworn in on Monday (January 20, 2025), U.S. President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order cancelling the provision of “citizenship by birth”, which, if unchallenged, could directly affect thousands of Indian professionals working in the U.S. under H-1B and other temporary visas, who hoped to raise their families there.
Mr. Trump also said he planned to levy “100% taxes” on BRICS countries for attempting to move to “non-dollar” transactions, referring to the 10-nation grouping of emerging economies that includes India.
“As a BRICS nation, they’ll have a 100% tariff if they so much as even think about doing what they thought, and therefore they will give it up immediately,” he said, erroneously referring to Spain as a BRICS member.
The grouping at present comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates.
In addition, Mr. Trump’s plans to crackdown on undocumented and illegal immigrants could hit about 7.25 lakh Indians, of which nearly 18,000 are already on a “final list for removal” or deportations.
Jaishankar-Rubio meet
As concerns grew in India over Mr. Trump’s announcements, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar was set to meet incoming U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to discuss priorities for the India-U.S. bilateral relationship and the Quad.
The one-on-one meeting, which would be Mr. Rubio’s first with any foreign dignitary, was due to take place on Tuesday afternoon in Washington, following a meeting of the Quad Foreign Ministers, including Australia’s Penny Wong and Japan’s Iwaya Takeshi.
Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by U.S. Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, U.S., on January 21, 2025.
| Photo Credit:
Reuters
The Quad Foreign Ministers are expected to discuss dates for the Quad Summit to be held in India later this year, while during the bilateral meeting Mr. Jaishankar and Mr. Rubio would discuss Mr. Trump’s visit to India and taking forward the strategic partnership, as well as the concerns over immigration and tariffs.
According to the public schedule released by the U.S. State Department for the U.S. Secretary of State’s first day, after he was confirmed by the Senate on Monday, Mr. Rubio will meet State Department employees and then hold talks with all Quad Foreign Ministers. The meeting of the Indo-Pacific grouping, that China has criticised, is significant as it is Mr. Rubio’s first foreign policy engagement.
On Monday, Mr. Jaishankar was accorded a front-row aisle seat right in front of the podium where Mr. Trump took oath.
Mr. Jaishankar’s seat was several rows ahead of the Foreign Ministers of Australia and Japan, both countries that are treaty allies of the U.S.
“[I] attended the Inaugural festivities in Washington this evening, [an] occasion to meet key members of President Trump’s Administration,” Mr. Jaishankar wrote on social media, posting his photographs with members of Mr. Trump’s Cabinet and leaders of the Senate and the U.S. Congress.
Mr. Rubio’s decision to meet the Quad Foreign Ministers first is also important as it comes amid Mr. Trump’s own outreach to China, including an invitation to Chinese President Xi Jinping for the inaugural ceremony on Monday, which Chinese Vice-Premier Han Zheng attended.
Mr. Rubio, known for his tough views on China, has been banned from travelling there and was sanctioned twice by Beijing over his comments criticising Chinese human rights violations in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
At his confirmation hearing last week, Mr. Rubio said he believed that China was the “most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary [the U.S.] has ever confronted”.
“We welcomed the Chinese Communist Party into the global order, and they took advantage of all of its benefits and they ignored all of its obligations and responsibilities. Instead, they have repressed and lied and cheated and hacked and stolen their way into global superpower status, and they have done so at our expense and at the expense of the people of their own country,” Mr. Rubio said.
The prominence of the Quad Foreign Ministers at the Trump inauguration and in Mr. Rubio’s schedule are believed to be both signal a priority for the Indo-Pacific partnership as well as a pointed message to Beijing.
Published – January 21, 2025 10:30 pm IST
