Sri Lanka’s strategic location offers it outsized importance: top U.S. official

By Kelum Bandara 

U.S. Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia Paul Kapur, a key official of the Trump administration, said Sri Lanka’s strategic location offered outsized importance and can make it a target for coercion. 

In his statement for the subcommittee hearing on South Asia: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Region, he said Bangladesh, Nepal, the Maldives, and Bhutan’s strategic locations also afford them similar importance. 

“Defence cooperation with the United States helps them to protect their borders and waterways against encroaching powers. And carefully targeted investment can provide these states with high-quality, transparent, non-coercive support for critical infrastructure like ports, telecom networks, and energy portals, helping them to avoid the dangers of debt-trapped diplomacy,” he said. 

He said South Asia- India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Nepal, and Bhutan- is vitally important for the U.S. 

India alone has well over 1 billion people and occupies a sub continental landmass. 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. As Secretary Marco Rubio has said, America first does not mean America alone. To achieve our goals, we must cooperate with like-minded partners who can share the burden, he said. 

“Often, this will require us to help our partners build strategic capacity, enabling them to better integrate into the world economy, preserve their autonomy, and contribute to a free and open region. We have many tools to do this. We, of course, want to expand our trade relationships with the South Asian countries because robust trade will make all of us stronger and more prosperous,” he said.