CLEVELAND (OHIO): Describing India as a “geopolitical ally” of the US, the Republican platform has urged New Delhi to protect all its religious communities from violence and discrimination and also called for securing nuclear arsenal of Pakistan.

“America’s immigration policy must serve the national interest of the United States, and the interests of American workers must be protected over the claims of foreign nationals seeking the same jobs,” the party platform said. There is no specific reference to the H 1B visa programme in the document, but the argument that foreign workers are taking over American jobs legally is raised frequently in its context. Senator Jeff Sessions from Alabama, a strong critic of the H 1B visa programme, was a primetime speaker on Monday at the convention. His virulent views on trade and immigration had pushed him to the margins of the Republican Party, but Mr Sessions has emerged as a key figure in the Trump coterie. “It cannot be our policy to have workers from abroad take jobs while we provide support payments for unemployed Americans,” Mr. Sessions told the convention.

In an apparent effort to calm the evangelical constituency of the Republican Party that gets agitated over reports of occasional religious violence against Christians in India, the document says: “For all of India’s religious communities, we urge protection against violence and discrimination.”

Pakistan will have much to worry from a Trump presidency. The platform attributes the country’s trouble to “conflicts in the Middle East,” completely delinking it from India.

Pakistan is discussed in the document in the context “conflicts in the Middle East,” and the party takes a combative posture towards China and Russia. In the case of Russia, the document even calls for expanding and strengthening sanctions against it. Mr. Trump has sent conflicting signals on Russia during his primary campaign, at times calling for cooperation to counter the Islamist threat, and talking of the threat posed by Russia.