AA Edit | As Trump Dances in the East, India Feels Left Out
Under Donald Trump, the US foreign policy may have fused with his domestic agenda. His dance in the east, literally with his ‘Maga steps’ in Kuala Lumpur and figuratively in his big eastern trip through Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, must be seen as a clear sign that the USA and the attractiveness of its market, which is the world’s biggest, matters. That is why the world is seen playing up to him to try and keep its share intact with the least tariff.
The leaders of Asean may have made their salutations with an eye on closing deals and Mr Trump signed four deals on trade and rare earths, which serves US interests the most. But if there is one thing that interests Mr Trump more, it is the Nobel Peace Prize and he furthered his obsessive claims, often of having saved millions of lives in bringing an end to conflicts, by personally signing the Thailand-Cambodia peace treaty.
With Mr Trump claiming a great meeting with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva and promising to sign deals with the Brazilians that might see their penal tariffs, now almost equal with those imposed on India, come down, India might well be the one feeling left out.
The signing of an India-US trade deal is said to be imminent but incumbent on Mr Trump signing off on it. But then it has been India’s decision not to meet him when so much is being said of its consumption of Russian oil.
Whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been unwise in not meeting Mr Trump to test their much-avowed friendship is a billion-dollar question given what is at stake, both in terms of what savings the economy gathered in buying crude from Russia for close to three years and what benefits may accrue after tapering off on cheaper oil and sticking to US and EU sanctions on the two big extracting companies Rosneft and Lukoil.
India’s policy may have dictated that it treads carefully in dealing with Mr Trump at this stage as even a word or comment may trip the US President as an Ontario TV advertisement reproducing Ronald Reagan’s speech on tariffs did. The time for a big emotional Modi-Trump reconnect might come, but only after the deal is signed, which might happen sooner if the Ukraine war came to an end with Vladimir Putin seeing the light on how much Russia has lost in men and weapons for a bit of territorial expansion in four years. It is a conciliatory sign that the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio who is among a few in the inner Trump circle airing the historic importance of strategic ties with India and calling for a pragmatic reset of foreign policy that should go beyond the bumpy road of trade tariffs.
Having diversified in reaching out to other markets, India can negotiate its way to a reasonable final deal and, of course, it would help if Mr Modi were to meet Mr Trump in a bilateral after having skipped three possible meetings most recently.
Meanwhile, India’s outreach through the India-Asean meeting was in keeping with its ‘Act East’ policy. Its desire to enhance the ties that are devoid of the tension which marks its relations with border-sharing neighbours was made clear even if platitudinous naming of the century as India’s and Asean’s are to be taken as just part of civil diplomacy. As the economic powerhouse of the region, India should have more to offer the dozen Asean members.