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The U.S. views the Quad (Quadrilateral Strategic Dialogue comprising India, the U.S., Japan, and Australia) as a “very important platform,” according to S. Paul Kapur, the top Trump administration diplomat for the South and Central Asian region.
“… The Quad is a very important platform. It has done well,” Assistant Secretary Kapur told the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South & Central Asia on Wednesday (February 11, 2026), characterising India as an “active” and “important” participant.
The U.S. and India were looking to expand defence exercises and interoperability following the signing of their latest ten-year defence cooperation framework (October 2025), according to Mr. Kapur.
“We also have some potential purchases of weapon systems in the pipeline that will help India to protect itself better and ensure its sovereignty. Also (this) will create American jobs (and) be good for both sides,” he said.
In addition to trade, the Trump administration was deploying targeted investment, diplomacy and defence cooperation to build strategic capacity in the region, as per Mr. Kapur, who drew a causal link between the recent completion of a U.S.-India trade deal and fresh momentum in the relationship.
“Following the trade framework President Trump reached last week with Prime Minister Modi, we can now focus on other shared priorities, lowering barriers to trade with one of the largest economies in the world, and opening the way to even more fulsome cooperation,” he told the handful of lawmakers at the hearing in Washington D.C.
Despite the uncertainties around trade, India and the U.S. were moving forward on “most axes” of the relationship, according to Mr. Kapur.
Opinion | India-U.S. trade deal is a blow to India’s strategic autonomy
On energy, Mr. Kapur said that India had been reducing its purchases of Russian oil and “diversifying away” from it. ”…Which is what we wanted them to do,” he added.
“And they’ve (India) actually been buying more U.S. energy. And that’s, I think, a promising possibility… to substitute some U.S. energy for the Russian energy…and buying from other places around the world too, of course,” he added.
Pakistan-U.S. working on critical mineral resources together: Kapur
The Trump administration official characterised Pakistan as “another important partner” in the region.
“We are working together with Pakistan to realise the potential of its critical-mineral resources,” he said, adding that energy and agricultural trade was expanding and counter-terrorism cooperation was ongoing.
On the February 12 elections in Bangladesh, Mr. Kapur said it was a “great thing” and that the U.S. was “very optimistic” about it, as it was about Nepal, which is expected to hold general elections in early March.
He characterised the change in Nepal and Bangladesh as “youth movements overthrowing older governments and now creating the opportunity for democratic participation”.
“So with Nepal, we also trust that we’ll have a secure and peaceful … electoral process, and we’re prepared to work with whoever wins,” he said.
At one point in the hearing, Mr. Kapur said that a dominant and hostile power in South Asia was not desirable for America.
“A hostile power dominating South Asia could exert coercive leverage over the world economy. The United States must prevent this from happening and keep the region free and open,” he said, adding that the U.S. needed to cooperate with partners. There were multiple references to China during the approximately one-hour-long hearing, which also exposed the different attitudes across Members of Congress towards the Trump administration’s handling of the India-U.S. relationship.
During the hearing, Representative Ami Bera, an Indian American Democrat from California, stated that he had been in India at the end of September 2025, just after Mr. Trump had imposed a 50% tariff and a $100,000 fee on some H-1B visas. He explained that from the perspective of the U.S. Congress, “nothing had changed” regarding a “three-decade strategy” that dates back to President Bill Clinton.
India strategic piece of puzzle in stabilizing the Indo-Pacific: Ami Bera
“We see India as a strategic piece of the puzzle in stabilising the Indo-Pacific. They (Indians) still see that. We see the economic relationship,” Mr. Bera said, adding that he was “cautiously optimistic” about the trade deal.
Mr. Kapur agreed that the strategy with regard to India had transcended Republican and Democrat administrations.
Mr. Bera asked Mr. Kapur to “push” India to use its diplomatic lines of communication with Moscow to assist the Trump administration in bringing peace to Ukraine.
India did not have to “go far afield to support our (U.S.) strategic interests”, according to Mr. Kapur.
“An independent, strong, prosperous India takes a big swath (swathe) of the Indo-Pacific away from China and that is actually a strategic win for us,” he added. Mr. Kapur was responding to Keith Self, a Texas Republican, who had asked what India was doing to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
During the hearing, Mr. Kapur had said the U.S. goal was not to keep China out of the region but to prevent China or any hegemon from taking over the region or using its coercive leverage over the region.
Ranking Member of the committee, Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a Democrat, asked Mr. Kapur if he thought there were any preconditions that had to be addressed before the U.S. agreed to participate in the Quad Leaders Summit. Mr. Kapur did not address this part of her question.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove also said she was concerned that the Quad was mentioned just twice in the 2025 National Security Strategy of the Trump Administration. (It is, in effect, mentioned only once in the Strategy, in its full form and in the abbreviated form).
India is supposed to host the Quad Summit this year.
The Democrat described the 50% tariff on India as causing a “needless rupture” in ties that delayed the Quad Summit and “sacrificed decades of painstaking trust-building” between India and the U.S.
She said Mr. Trump insisting he was responsible for a ceasefire in the four-day war between India and Pakistan in May 2025 and offering to mediate on Kashmir, overshadowed the role of U.S. diplomacy.
Ms. Dove pushed Mr. Kapur on protections for Afghans resettled in the United States and criticised the Trump administration’s policies on Afghanistan and Afghans, focusing on the status of women and girls. Chair of the Committee Bill Huizenga (Republican) criticised the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, calling that a “true betrayal” of America’s Afghan allies.
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Quad ‘very important platform’: top U.S. South Asia diplomat Paul Kapur
