Context

Delhi needs to unlearn some of the assumptions about US policy as it prepares to host Trump next week. While the diaspora is important and could be of some value in dealing with Trump, it can’t override the deeper forces animating American politics.

Changing America under Trump

• Restriction on immigration: Trump’s America wants the Americans to come home but is shutting the door on unrestricted immigration from the rest of the world.
  • Domestic critics say America has been a nation of immigrants and Trump is wrong to keep them out.
  • Why the restriction on immigrants? But Trump has much support among the working people who know-
  • Immigration keeps wages low.
  • Helps the capitalist class and-
  • Disrupts the familiar cultural and social landscape.
• Some want America out
  • Some chancelleries in the world demand that America must go home.
  • The president of the Philippines wants to end Manila’s century-old relationship with the US military.
  • Iran wants America out of the Gulf.
  • Russia and China would like to see the US forces out of Europe and Asia respectively.
  • The world is paying serious attention to the possibility of Yankee going home.

Downsizing of the US role and how the world is responding?

• Downsizing
  • In the Gulf, Trump wants the Asian powers to police the vital sea lines of communication.
• In Europe and Asia, he wants the allies to do more for their own security.
• How the world is responding?
  • Europe’s response In Europe, France and Germany are now talking about creating new defence capabilities for the European Union amidst the prospect for American security retrenchment.
  • How the Asian countries are responding? In Asia, Japan is debating a larger security role.
  • In the Gulf, America’s Arab allies are scrambling to diversify their security dependence.

America First policy

• What is America First policy? The idea of downsizing America’s role, along with the rejection of free trade and open borders, is at the very heart of Trump’s America First policy.
• Resistance to the policy: To be sure there is deep resistance in the US to these ideas that run counter to America’s post-war internationalism.
  • Wall Street on the East Coast and Silicon Valley on the West Coast along with the old foreign and security policy establishment in Washington all oppose Trump’s America First focus.
• Widespread support to the policy: Trump’s message, however, resonates across the political divide in the US.
  • Many candidates for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party agree with Trump’s goal of ending America’s “endless wars” in the Middle East.
  • Many in the working classes, who traditionally supported the Democrats, believe Trump is right in arguing that free trade has hollowed out American industry and eliminated manufacturing jobs.

How the changes matter for India?

• Prepare for the changes: America is at an inflection point; India needs to come to terms with the profound changes unfolding in the US.
• No intervention policy: The Indian political classes castigated the US for excessive interventions in the affairs of other nations.
  • Trump now says such interventions are counterproductive and all nations must strengthen their sovereignty.
• Critical of globalisation: Indians criticised the US for imposing globalisation on others; the US President is now one of the biggest critics of globalisation.
  • Trump’s America is not the one we have known.
• India’s sensitivity to the US domestic politics: As India broadened its engagement with America in the last two decades, Delhi has become more sensitive to the US domestic political dynamics.
  • In getting the US to ease off on Kashmir and nuclear issues, Delhi had to look beyond the foreign policy establishment to generate better US appreciation of India’s concerns and interests.
• Indian diaspora: One of the instruments that came in handy was the mobilisation of the Indian diaspora, it emerged as a key factor in elevating the bilateral relationship in the 21st century.
  • While the diaspora is important and could be of some value in dealing with Trump, it can’t override the deeper forces animating American politics.

Conclusion

Delhi’s success with the US will depend on the kind of strategic imagination it can display on trade cooperation, securing Afghanistan after America’s withdrawal, stabilising the Gulf and developing a new global compact on migration that is sensitive to domestic political considerations and yet contributes to the collective economic development.

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