By Keerthi Martyn Courtesy The Diplomat

As Dissanayake takes up the presidency, Sri Lanka stands at a pivotal juncture.

Sri Lanka begins a new political era under the presidency of Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who was elected in September following an economic crisis in 2022 that brought down the previous government and sparked political uncertainty in the country for the last two years.

There are several questions about Dissanayake and his National People’s Party (NPP), a leftist party that in the past has had strained relations with India and the West. These concerns are amplified by the current geopolitics in the Indian Ocean and the complicated triangular relationships between the United States, India, and China, and their respective relations with Sri Lanka.

Fulcrum of the Indo-Pacific

Defined in the State Department’s Integrated Country Strategy as the fulcrum” of the Indo-Pacific, Sri Lanka is crucial for promoting Washington’s broader regional policy. Concerns about China’s economic and potential military engagement with Sri Lanka and the Indian Ocean region will continue to drive U.S. interests in maintaining relations with the island nation. Washington views Sri Lanka as a lynchpin” of its Indo-Pacific strategy and seeks a partner committed to strengthening the democratic process and economic governance while protecting its sovereignty from malign regional actors. 

In his speech after swearing in as president, Dissanayake articulated Sri Lanka’s aim to work with the world” in its foreign relations, regardless of geopolitical fractures, to serve the nation’s interests. This reflects a dynamic in Sri Lanka’s foreign policy aimed toward pragmatic multi-alignment that primarily serves the nation’s acute domestic economic needs. However, Dissanayake’s campaign and the NPP manifesto also stress promoting Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and territorial integrity without compromise,” suggesting that the new government’s foreign policy will also be guided by perceived threats to these core principles. 

Under Dissanayake’s presidency, he is likely to view cooperation with the United States as strategically important. In a brief exchange on X (formerly known as Twitter) between Dissanayake and U.S. President Joe Biden, Dissanayake said he will work closely with the United States and expressed the two countries’ shared commitment to peace, security, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific. While his domestic agenda will focus on growing the economy, fighting corruption, and fostering responsive governance through upcoming parliamentary elections, relations with the U.S. will include pursuing economic investment and trade facilitation along with maritime security cooperation. 

Prioritizing Economic Engagement

Dissanayake’s economic agenda prioritizes renegotiating Sri Lanka’s 48-month $2.9 billion IMF bailout program and promoting worker-centered reforms that improve the economy’s feeble 2.2 percent growth rate and decrease its 25.9 percent poverty rate. Dissanayake will likely pursue an economics-centered foreign policy that prioritizes transparent foreign investment. He hopes to promote Sri Lanka, with its strategic location in the Indian Ocean, as a logistics hub, while protecting its exclusive economic zone. 

The U.S. will continue its strong support for Sri Lanka in meeting IMF requirements on anti-corruption and transparency, values that align with U.S. interests and that were key elements of Dissanayake’s presidential campaign. Recent U.S. infrastructure investments, including the $553 million Development Finance Corporation (DFC) deal in the Colombo West Container Terminal, will also support the new Sri Lankan administration’s goals around foreign investment and high-quality infrastructure development. Such investment aims to serve multiple objectives: growing the island’s post-crisis economy, enhancing bilateral strategic benefits from the largest and busiest transshipment port in the Indian Ocean, and demonstrating tangible U.S. efforts to provide a transparent alternative” to China’s BRI initiatives in Sri Lanka. 

It is unclear how the Dissanayake government will improve Sri Lanka’s trade levels, given the NPP’s left-leaning protectionist policies focusing on domestic manufacturing and industrialization. However, due to the United States’ position as Sri Lanka’s top export partner, accounting for 23 percent of its total exported goods in 2023, strong trade relations are expected to remain a focal point of bilateral engagement. Initiatives including the Trade and Infrastructure Investment Framework (TIFA) and continued collaboration on the development of a Trade National Single Window System (TNSWS) will support these efforts.

Additionally, the  Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) – if strengthened and extended to Sri Lanka – can provide tangible, strategic benefits for both countries and resonate with Dissanayake’s desire for fair trade, supply chain resiliency, sustainable infrastructure, and anti-corruption.

Maritime Security Cooperation 

The NPP’s commitment to protecting Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and territorial integrity without compromise suggests a more cautious approach to potential military engagements in the Indian Ocean region. Under the previous Sri Lankan government, international concerns over Chinese surveillance vessels prompted Colombo to temporarily ban foreign research ships from visiting its ports in 2024. The government pledged to lift the ban by January 2025.

In this context, if the U.S. frames security cooperation with Sri Lanka within the lens of strategic competition with China, this may heighten fears in Sri Lanka that the Indian Ocean is being transformed into a battleground for great power conflict. While such an approach would not garner widespread support in Sri Lanka, a U.S. security focus instead on capacity-building and addressing issues in maritime security, including drug trafficking, illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, and disaster risk management, could be more successful. These represent critical security concerns for Sri Lanka and involve the sustainable protection of its exclusive economic zones (EEZs).

Successful past U.S. military engagements in Sri Lanka include the Cooperation and Afloat Readiness Training (CARAT) program, and the International Military Education Training (IMET) program, aimed at enhancing capacity building in the maritime domain. These programs align with U.S. objectives to help Sri Lanka protect its sovereignty and to promote a more secure” and resilient” Indo-Pacific.

Multilateral efforts, such as the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Environmental Security Forum held in Colombo in August 2023, alongside Sri Lanka’s current role as chair of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) – where it promotes the theme of Reinforcing Indian Ocean Identity” – further support the U.S.’s Indian Ocean engagement strategy. This strategy is aimed in part at enhancing the profile of small littoral states in sustainable maritime security while safeguarding their territorial integrity.

Uncertainty regarding security sector reform in Sri Lanka, including right-sizing its army and reducing its presence in post-conflict areas, remains a potential barrier to Sri Lanka-U.S. security engagement. If, on the other hand, Dissanayake pursues a proper security reorientation, this will make it easier for the United States to enhance its focus on the maritime domain, ensuring the protection of Sri Lankan sovereignty and contributing to a secure, resilient, and stable Indian Ocean region. 

Human Rights Complications 

Dissanayake’s election is likely to bring a renewed commitment to post-crisis responsive governance, transparency, and anti-corruption – values in line with U.S. priorities and initiatives in the country. However, his reluctance to hold individuals accountable for human rights concerns related to Sri Lanka’s long running civil war, which ended in 2009, may prove to be a source of contention.

Dissanayake’s stance on not punishing rights violators contrasts sharply with the U.S. push for accountability and its sanctioning of Sri Lankan military leaders believed to have engaged in gross human rights violations, especially in the final days of the war. Furthermore, the implementation of the 13th Amendment for power-sharing in the postwar north and east, an issue that the United States has previously supported, also remains uncertain. Dissanayake flipped on the amendment’s implementation throughout his campaign, and the NPP’s poor electoral performance in those areas signifies the Tamil community’s skepticism in the administration’s willingness to follow through with it. 

Given continued U.S. focus on postwar accountability, reform of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), religious freedom, and reconciliation, human rights issues will likely continue to be a source of friction between the two countries. Recent congressional actions, such as a 2023 bipartisan letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken raising concerns on Sri Lanka’s human rights accountability, and a 2024 resolution supporting Eelam Tamil self-determination highlight the influence of diaspora and advocacy groups on U.S. policy, and serve as a source of irritation between the U.S. and Sri Lanka. 

Maintaining a balance on human rights will be critical for Sri Lanka-U.S. relations moving forward. The optimism surrounding the reformist Sirisena government in 2015, and its eventual failure to deliver on high expectations, serves as a cautionary tale. Pressuring Dissanayake too strongly with unrealistic expectations risks damaging potential reforms and fueling anti-west nationalist sentiments, while potentially driving Sri Lanka closer to China and Russia in the Human Rights Council.

Nonetheless, Dissanayake should expect the U.S. to remain firm on human rights as a central pillar of its foreign policy, especially in the context of promoting a free and open” and rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific. A strong Sri Lanka-U.S. democratic partnership will necessitate strategic cooperation alongside constructive dialogue and progress on human rights. 

The Way Forward

A 2009 U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report underscored the complexities of postwar bilateral engagement between the U.S. and Sri Lanka, emphasizing the need to balance domestic reforms with multifaceted interests while avoiding Sri Lanka’s further isolation from the United States. Amidst the growing complications of regional geopolitics and Sri Lanka’s own political and economic landscape, it is more important than ever that Washington pursue this kind of nuanced engagement.  

For its part, the incoming Sri Lankan government has the chance to address past shortcomings and forge a more productive partnership with the United States. The Sri Lanka-U.S. relationship should strengthen democratic governance, encourage greater development and trade opportunities, and bolster maritime-oriented security cooperation, all while upholding Sri Lanka’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and regional stability.

Sri Lanka stands at a pivotal juncture, and its future course under its new president will deeply impact its national growth, U.S.-Sri Lanka relations, and the wider stability of the Indian Ocean region.