Milwaukee | Indian-American Republican leader Nikky Haley has endorsed her former boss Donald Trump as the party’s candidate for the presidential election, delivering the message of unity after their bitter rivalry during the primaries.

Haley, 52, unsuccessfully challenged Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and spent months sparring with the former president.

But last week, she instructed her 97 delegates to vote for Trump at the convention as she called for unity in the party.

"I’ll start by making one thing perfectly clear: Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period,” Haley said Tuesday as she addressed the Republican National Convention here during which the party will nominate Trump as its presidential candidate.

Haley, who was the only Republican leader to have seriously challenged Trump during the bruising campaign primaries, told thousands of delegates and party leaders that Trump is the best bet for the country and that the Republicans are united to defeat incumbent President Joe Biden.

“Let us join together as a party. Let us come together as a people -- as one country – strong and proud. Let us show our children and the world that even on our worst day, we are blessed to live in America,” said the former South Carolina governor and the US Ambassador to the United Nations.

As Trump, 78, watched on from the convention centre’s VIP suite, Haley used her speech to defend the former president’s foreign policy record and speak directly to voters who disagree with him on certain issues.

“There are some Americans who don’t agree with Donald Trump 100% of the time,” she said. “My message to them is simple: You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him.”

“Our country is at a critical moment. We have a choice to make. For more than a year, I said a vote for Joe Biden is a vote for President Kamala Harris. After seeing the debate, everyone knows it’s true,” Haley said. “If we have four more years of Biden . . . or a single day of Harris . . . our country will be badly worse off. For the sake of our nation, we have to go with Donald Trump,” Haley said.

Trump was present at the convention centre when she spoke. Trump and his running mate Senator J D Vance gave a standing ovation to Haley when she started her speech and endorsed him.

“Our foreign enemies win when they see Americans hate each other. They see that today, whether it’s on college campuses or in a field in Butler, Pennsylvania. But we can conquer those fears with strength and unity,” she said.

“Our fellow Americans are fearful right now. Families are suffering from inflation and wages that don’t keep up with prices. Young people are being indoctrinated to think our country is racist and evil. The Jewish community is facing an obscene rise in antisemitism. Too many minorities are trapped in communities devastated by crime,” she said.

She said no president can fix all problems alone.

"We have to do this together. America has an amazing ability to self-correct. At this moment, we have a chance to put aside our differences and focus on what unites us and strengthens our country,” Haley said.

“We must not only be a unified party. We must also expand our party. We are so much better when we are bigger. We are stronger when we welcome people into our party who have different backgrounds and experiences. And right now, we need to be strong, to save America. This is a defining moment, not only for our party but for our country,” said the popular Indian-American leader.

Haley said under Donald Trump, the US didn’t have the border disaster being faced today.

“And we won’t when he is president again,” she said. “Under Joe Biden, migrants are coming into our country by the thousands every day. We have no idea who they are, where they end up, or what they plan to do,” she said.

Biden, she alleged, lifted the sanctions on Iran.

“He begged them to get back into the nuclear deal. He surrendered in Afghanistan. He sent every possible sign of weakness. Even now, while Hamas is still holding American hostages, Biden is pressuring Israel instead of the terrorists,” she said.

“Trump got us out of the insane Iran nuclear deal. He imposed the toughest sanctions ever on Iran. And he eliminated the arch-terrorist Qasem Soleimani. Iran was too weak to start any wars. They knew Trump meant business, and they were afraid,” she said.

“When Barack Obama was president, Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea. With Joe Biden as president, Putin invaded all of Ukraine. But when Donald Trump was president, Putin did nothing. No invasions, no wars. That was no accident. Putin didn’t attack Ukraine because he knew Donald Trump was tough. A strong president doesn’t start wars. A strong president prevents them,” she said amidst applause from the audience. Haley said she hasn’t always agreed with Trump.

“But we agree far more often than we disagree. We agree on keeping America strong. We agree on keeping America safe. And we agree that the Democrats have moved so far to the Left that they’re putting our freedoms in danger,” Haley said.

Unity between Trump and his former primary rivals was a key theme on Tuesday. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis used his speech, which followed Haley’s, to call on Republicans to help elect the former president.

Making his maiden appearance before the Republican National Convention, Indian-American entrepreneur-turned-politician Vivek Ramaswamy also asked fellow countrymen to vote for Donald Trump in the November general elections to revive national pride, reignite the economy, restore law and order and seal the border.

Trump is the president who will actually unite this country, not through empty words but through action, he said.

"Success is unifying, excellence is unifying, that's who we are as Americans, that's who we have always been,” Ramaswamy, a former presidential aspirant, said.

“We are the country where we can disagree like hell and still get together at the dinner table at the end of it. That is the America I know. That is the America we miss," he said as his speech electrified the crowd.

“If you disagree with everything I say then our message to you is this - we will still defend your right to say it because that is who we are as Americans. We are a country where we can disagree like hell and still get together at the dinner table at the end of it. That is what it means to be an American,” said the Indian-American.

Haley was born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa in Bamberg, South Carolina, to immigrant Sikh parents from Amritsar, Punjab.