In remarks at the Rajasthan Centre in Jaipur, India, on Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance discussed his dinner with Indian PM Narendra Modi.
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00:00our relationship. Now we're not here to preach that you do things any one particular way.
00:07Too often in the past, Washington approached Prime Minister Modi with an attitude of preachiness
00:12or even one of condescension. Prior administrations saw India as a source of low-cost labor
00:19on the one hand, even as they criticized the Prime Minister's government, arguably the most popular
00:25in the democratic world. And as I told Prime Minister Modi last night, he's got approval
00:29ratings that would make me jealous. But it wasn't just India. This attitude captured too
00:38much of our economic relationship with the rest of the world. So we shipped countless jobs
00:44overseas and with them our capacity to make things, from furniture, appliances, and even
00:51weapons of war. We traded hard power for soft power because with economic integration, we
00:58were told, would also come peace through sameness. Over time, we'd all assume the same sort of
01:06bland, secular, universal values. No matter where you lived, the world was flat. After all,
01:12that was the thesis and that was what they told us. And when that thesis proved false, or at
01:17least incomplete, leaders in the West took it upon themselves to flatten it by any means
01:22necessary. But many people across the world, and I think your country counts among them, they did not
01:28want to be flattened. Many were proud of where they came from, their way of life, the kind of jobs they
01:34worked, and the kind of jobs their parents worked before them. And that very much includes people in my
01:40own country, the United States of America. Now, some of you are aware of my own background. I actually didn't plan to talk about my background at all until last night at dinner, while my children mostly behaved.
01:43We gave an A-minus for behavior with the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said, I have one request. I want you to talk a little bit about your background. And so I wanted to do that. For those of you who don't know anything about me, I wanted to talk about it. I come from, and I'm biased, the greatest state in the Union, the state of Ohio, a longtime manufacturing powerhouse
01:48powerhouse in the United States of America.
02:15My home specifically is a place called Middletown.
02:18Now, it's not a massive city by any means, it's not Jaipur, but it's a decent-sized
02:23town and a place where people make things, which has been a point of pride in Middletown
02:28for generations.
02:30It's filled with families like my own, some of whom called us hillbillies, Americans who
02:34came down from the surrounding hills and mountains of West Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky
02:40to cities like Middletown in pursuit of the manufacturing jobs that were creating widespread
02:45prosperity for families all across America.
02:48They came to Middletown in search of what we call, back home, the American dream.
02:54In Middletown, my parents raised me, my grandparents raised me.
02:57They taught us to work hard, they taught me to study hard, and they taught me to love
03:02God and my country and always be good to your own.
03:06My granddad, who I called Papaw growing up, he typified that.
03:10Late into life, he worked as a steelmaker at the local mill, and I know India has a lot
03:15of those.
03:16Papaw's job gave him a good wage, stable hours, and a generous pension.
03:21All that allowed him to support not just him and my grandmother, but his own daughter and
03:25grandkids with him.
03:27By the time I came around, money was awfully tight, but he worked hard to make a good living
03:31for all of us.
03:33Now I know Papaw and Mamaw were grateful for the way of life their country made possible.
03:38Their generation bore witness to the formation of America's great middle class.
03:43By creating an economy centered around production, around workers who build things, and around
03:48the value of their labor, our nation's leaders then transformed their country and made thousands
03:54of little Middletowns possible.
03:57The government supported its labor force.
04:00We created incentives for productive industries to take root and struck good deals with international
04:05partners to sell the goods made in the United States of America.
04:09But as America settled in to world historic prosperity it generated, our leaders began to
04:15take that very prosperity and what created it for granted.
04:19They forgot the importance of building, of supporting productive industry, of striking fair deals, and
04:25of supporting our workers and their families.
04:28And as time went on, we saw the consequences.
04:31In my hometown, factories left, jobs evaporated.
04:35America's Middletowns ceased to be the lifeblood of our nation's economy.
04:40And the United States, as it became transformed, those very people, the working class, the background
04:47of the United States of America, were dismissed as backwards for holding on to the values their
04:51people had held dear for generations.
04:54Now Middletown's story is my story, but it's hardly unusual in the United States of America.
05:00There are tens of millions of Americans who, over the last 20 or so years, have woken up to
05:05what's happening in our nation, but I believe they woke up well before it's too late.
05:11Now like you, we want to appreciate our history, our culture, our religion.
05:16We want to do commerce and strike good deals with our friends.
05:20We want to found our vision of the future upon the proud recognition of our heritage,
05:25rather than self-loathing and fear.
05:28I work for a president who has long understood all of this, whether through fighting those who
05:33seek to erase American history or in support of fair trade deals abroad, he has been consistent
05:39on these issues for decades.
05:41And as a result, under the Trump administration, America now has a government that has learned
05:47from the mistakes of the past.
05:49It's why President Trump cares so deeply about protecting the manufacturing economy that is
05:54the lifeblood of American prosperity and making sure America's workers have opportunities
05:59to be part of the country who's interested in rotating the lifeblood of American history.
06:01And I'm getting under their hope and help to expand their lives and the quality of it.
06:07And I think that this is what I wanted to do.
06:09What the plan is for in the world?
06:11What are the plans of the country that we want to do?
06:13What's the plan?
06:15What are the plans of the country that we want to do?
06:19We want to go in the world.
06:21What are the plans of the country that we want?
06:24What else?
06:25What are the plans of the country that we're doing?