Use rsa keys for ssh in setup.py install

I am developing a python package that, when installed, should use SSH to communicate with remote servers. I have RSA key validation for all servers that I would like to connect to for my user, but I need to run setup.py with root privileges. Unfortunately, root cannot use the RSA keys I have, so I tried running commands from setup.py with downgraded permissions, but that didn't work. for example, to check if RSA: keys are working after running sudo python

on command line in python environment:

from subprocess import call
call(['ssh','-oBatchMode=yes',host])

      

        
        
        
      

    

gives Permission denied (publickey,password).

works only python

on command line and works with the same script works

execute sudo python

at the command line and then:

from subprocess import call
call(['sudo','-u','pi','ssh','-oBatchMode=yes',host])

      

        
        
        
      

    

gives the same error

works sudo python

, then:

call(['sudo','-u','pi','whoami'])

      

        
        
        
      

    

returns pi

as expected

Why can't I access RSA keys this way? What can I do to make this work?