“A pre-emptive and proactive policy is always better when it comes to Trump,” said the former Indian ambassador to the US, Harsh V Shringla –and current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems very much to agree.
As Modi prepares for an Indian-US summit in Washington this week, it appears India is once again “ready to adapt” to the US president’s “transactional style of diplomacy”, said The Washington Post.
What will be on the agenda?
India’s slowing economy means the main priority for Modi is to avoid crippling tariffs, like those Trump has already imposed on China, imposed (then rescinded) on Canada and Mexico, and threatened against the EU. Trump last year referred to India as a “very big abuser” of trade ties with the US, highlighting America’s $45 billion (£37 billion) trade deficit with the country.
Modi will “almost certainly make some concessions on two vexed issues: trade and illegal immigration”, said Foreign Policy. On the former, he has already made a “clear concession to Trump”, said Bloomberg, by cutting India’s “own (notoriously high) tariffs” on some US goods, including Harley-Davidson motorbikes.
“India’s posture of appeasement is not unique, but it’s very clever,” Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia Programme at the US Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told The Washington Post.
“By making pre-emptive concessions on relatively minor issues, governments can allow Trump to put quick wins on the board, without enduring too much pain themselves.”
What about immigration?
Modi’s government has signalled its willingness to accept the return of nearly 18,000 Indians living in the US, despite growing “anger” in his country at the “humiliating deportation” by the US last week of more than 100 Indian nationals in shackles and chains, said The Independent.
Delhi hopes this attempt to “placate the new US administration” over the number of illegal Indian immigrants – which the Pew Research Center estimates at 725,000 – will “safeguard legal migration pathways for its citizens, including student visas and H-1B visas for skilled workers”.
Why is India tightening its ties with the US?
The US-India relationship is on a “more secure footing than it has been in decades”, said Foreign Policy. Aside from the obvious “bonhomie” between their strongman leaders, this alignment is largely down to “a shared belief that China increasingly constitutes a threat to both countries’ strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific”.
India is one of the founding members of the Brics bloc, a group that has “long projected itself as an alternative to Western-led models of global governance”, said the BBC. However, India is “perhaps the most Western-oriented Brics member”, in line with its foreign-policy strategy to “balance relations with a wide spectrum of geopolitical players”.
What does the US want?
As Brics member states become “more prominent and influential”, the US hopes India’s pre-eminent position in the bloc will allow it to act as a bulwark against the “longstanding vision – articulated emphatically by Beijing and Moscow – of serving as a counter to the West”, said the BBC.
Trump has so far adopted a hawkish approach to the group, even going so far as to threaten Brics states with 100% tariffs when news emerged of them talking about replacing the US dollar as their reserve currency. His close relationship with Modi, however, may allow the US to exert more “soft-power” influence over the bloc.