New Delhi: Two weeks before the “buzzing’’ India visit of US State Secretary Michael R. Pompeo, the latter had attended the US-India Business Council’s symposium titled, India Ideas Summit, organised at the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington DC on 12 June. That Summit happened amidst frayed tempers over retaliatory trade measures being threatened by both Indian and US governments and eventually, concerns being raised by India watchers and Asia experts in the US.
Pompeo’s key address and the “fireside chat” therein Washington DC and the comments he made in New Delhi after his meetings were strikingly similar in tone and tenor. The Secretary of State’s visit endorses the common point agenda of President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi—India and US are the partners for future world order and that despite “friends having differences.’’
Knowing well that both the countries cannot afford to lose this strategic partnership, which has got strengthened under Prime Minister Modi and President Trump in the last two years and is bound to get cemented further, US Congressmen urged both the leaders attending G20 Summit in Osaka to “work to strengthen bilateral ties’’.
“A strong US-India relationship is of vital strategic interest to both nations…We urge President Trump to engage with Prime Minister Modi and his new government and continue to build on the success of past Democratic and Republican administrations,’’ Congressmen wrote in a letter to President Trump.
With trillions of dollar worth US investments in India on cards, Pompeo’s India visit is seen as a “damage control’’ and one of “balming effect” on the rising trade tensions between the two countries. Amidst the Iran crisis and the issue of oil imports from Iran and Venezuela to India threatening to hike import duties on US products, top Indo-US experts on the Capitol in DC and in New Delhi see Pompeo’s trip as that of a “trouble shooter, who came to stop the ‘bleeding’ in Indo-US strategic ties spanning from trade to security and strategic development in Indo-Pacific region.”
Richard M. Rossow, Senior Adviser at the Washington DC-based Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), feels that US Secretary Pompeo’s visit is “key to rebuild bonhomie, and try to halt the slide in relations’’. Rossow told The Sunday Guardian: “Between the escalating trade fight and US pressure on India over ties to Iran and Venezuela, relations have noticeably dipped. And both sides are contemplating actions that could worsen ties, such as India’s approach to data localisation, and America’s potential new trade sanctions. So Secretary Pompeo’s trip has, hopefully, slowed the bleeding.’’
However, the India expert at CSIS feels that “both sides need to re-assess approaches on trade’’. Rossow said, “The onus is clearly on India, which has a longer history of putting up barriers to imports. Finding middle ground on medical device price controls, and further relaxation of import duties on heavy motorcycles seem pretty easy. Also, India can likely make solid steps in opening some parts of its agriculture market. The United States, for its part, should quickly reciprocate by resuming India’s status as a partner under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) programme, and end new attempts to hike customs duties on other goods.’’
Michael Kugelman at the Asia Program in Woodrow Wilson Center in DC, too, agrees that the biggest goal of this trip was “to do some damage control’’. Kugelman told The Sunday Guardian: “Expectations were low for the visit, as they should have been. Given how tense the relationship is these days, the biggest goal of the visit was quite modest: To do some damage control.’’
Kugelman said: “India needs to keep talking to the US, and on high levels. That’s the most important thing. Strong relationships are able to weather tensions, and one reason why they can weather them is that there are sustained discussions.’’ He justified this argument, saying, “Aspirationally, there are many sharp convergences when it comes to views of Asia and the Indo-Pacific. Both sides articulate their support for the free, open, rules-based vision that dominates the Indo-Pacific and Act East policies. The question is if the vision can be implemented. And on that, the jury is still out.”
Aparna Pande, another South Asia expert at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC, sees the trip as a “productive one’’. Pande told The Sunday Guardian: “It was a good trip overall. There appears to be a discussion between Secretary Pompeo and his Indian counterpart External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar…The important thing to remember is that at least a dialogue is going on.”
“However, both the countries need to find a reasonable equilibrium. Disagreements must not be allowed to outweigh pursuit of shared interests,” Pande said, adding, “the significance of India is understood by the American political leadership”. The statement issued by Rep Eliot Engel, Chairman of House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC), reflects this especially where it says: “The measure and strength of bilateral relationships cannot be boiled down to trade deficits and tariffs.”
It has also got clear since Prime Minister Modi’s coming to a second term that India demands a level-playing field and will speak its mind unfazed on oil from Iran and defence supplies from Russia. With US sanctions threats doing rounds, Pompeo’s statement—“Friends can have differences and trillions of dollar worth US investments await for India”—made those negative winds pass away swiftly. Experts on the Indian side feel that “it’s time for the US to act’’.
“It was on expected lines. Both held on to their positions. The S-400 deal is extremely important for India,” said Brig. Gurmeet Kanwal, a Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA). Added Prof Satish Kumar, an expert on International Politics, “India’s firm stand vis-à-vis S-400 is more than seen…We have no option but to ally with the US for defence purposes to counter the Russia-China-Pakistan axis. But at the same time, Indian autonomy has to remain intact. No country can dictate its terms on us.”
However, India must not squander this great opportunity by not accommodating US companies’ rising interest here for investments, amidst its trade war with China. There is a big opportunity waiting to leverage and that will demand accommodation and trust between the two largest democracies.
Interestingly, even as two largest democracies engage in a trade war, their defence agreements on the anvil promise “a positive future, eventually’’. Particularly with the new partnership evolving in the Indo-Pacific region, JAI trilateral partnership involving, Japan, America and India and QUAD, which adds Australia in this strategic group, much awaits both India and the US to overcome trade frictions to be the “friends for a future world order”.