United States President Donald Trump will become the seventh US President to visit India officially. Yes, Barack Obama visited India twice in 2010 and 2015 respectively, and met two Prime Ministers from India as host – Dr Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi. However, with the Modi government facing a slowdown in the economy and Trump facing elections in the next eight months, it is time to observe who scratches whose back during their famous hug and why.
As this year is election year in the United States, Prime Minister Modi knows that President Trump will be looking to leverage television optics foreign visits for his domestic audience to build up his political image. But Trump’s long-awaited first India trip is not just a feel-good spectacle.
The Modi government has been working hard to finalise a bilateral trade deal that settles outstanding disputes. However, Trump has been obstinate and indicated that he is ‘saving the big deal for later’ and also adding that trade tariff is very high in India. Both sides have outsized ambitions for their relationship, which they hope this trip will advance.
For US, the firewalled China seems to be no longer of long-term interests as a market. The US sees India with over a billion population and young, emerging as an economic power in Asia. Also this may be the first time that during such a summit meeting between Modi and Trump, the hyphenated India-Pakistan relationship and the issue of Jammu and Kashmir are not likely to take the front seat, as it was a routine in the past several decades.
The Trump administration has already signed revised trade deals with Canada and Mexico, Japan, China and South Korea and declared that ‘the next thing could be Europe’. India is the last remaining major trade partner of the US and their bilateral trade in goods and services happens to be over $150 billion. It is a hawkish trade war.
However, India the emerging economy of the world is no pushover and it has negotiated hard with the United States on a number of tariff items in agricultural products, mobile phones, medical devices and aluminum, and in all likelihood Trump is unlikely to extract anything more from India in bargain as India also knows it is election year for the US President. The equations would have been different had Trump visited India two years ago. However, the US is also aware that India is undergoing an economic slowdown and the job market in India is at an all time low in many years.
On the one hand, politically Modi is secure till 2024 as against the present political situation for Trump, but Modi is facing much flak on the domestic economy management and its slowing down. “I am going to India next week. They have been hitting us very hard for many years. I really like PM Modi but we got to talk a little business. One of the highest tariffs in the world is India,” Trump mentioned publicly last week.US has always been complaining that India imports less from US and exports more to US, upsetting the apple cart of trade balance.
Fresh orders from India for American oil and gas as well as attack helicopters, missile defense systems and lethal drones do matter. The US civilian goods trade deficit with India might shrink from $23 billion, and the bilateral military trade target of $25 billion may be achieved in the coming years if Trump and Modi do manage to ink the still elusive final trade settlement.
All this sounds like progress from a populist American perspective, but for Modi the test is the wider geopolitical potential of the India-US strategic partnership. Much to New Delhi’s disappointment since 2017, Trump has dampened the strategic spirit with his narrow transactional redefinition of American foreign policy priorities.
Will the expected hug between the two leaders be real or just for the galleries and a photo-op this time? Also, will there be any Chai pe Charcha as it was done in the past with US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping? It is an excellent platform for both the leaders to play to the gallery. The diplomatic acumen will be put to test and talked about in years to come. It is a litmus test.
