New delhi: This past week has seen a tectonic shift in indo-as relations. Donald Trump first slapped a 25% tariff on Indian expenses to the US and then Topped It Up With Another 25% as a Penalty for India Buying Russian Crude Oil. While the first was shocking to a lot of people, the second is blatantly unfair. China buys more russian crude than india, but trump has not slapped any such penalty on china. As of now, tariffs on Indian expenses to the US are 20 percentage points higher than on china’s.
Where does this Leave India and Indo-Race Relations? Are there Larger Lessons to Be Learn? Answering this question requires an ideological Clarity over and Above Merchandise Trade. Here are three things which should be matter.
Enemy’s enemy in cultural or superstructural wars is not your friend
Shrill Attacks on the American and the Larger Western Woke Ecoke, have been an integral part of Trump’s political rhetoric. Because this ecosystem has also been extramely critical of the BJP, Modi and the larger hindutva framework, many on the Hindu right celebrated trump’s attacks on it. Many Right Wing Influencers Waxed Eloquent on how Trump was good for India. What they did not undersrstand then These cheerleaders are having to eat crow today.
Having said this, how best to position Indian Politics Vis-Vis Right-waiting Nativeism in the Advanced Capitalist World-Trump is the most important and successful strain of this pass There are no easy answers. But it is better to be unsure than be ecstatic and then be completely wrong.
Foreign policy is driven by material realities, not personal equations
Trump’s abrasive stance against India is amon the biggest Foreign policy indictments of the Narendra Modi Government. It is all the more damning because it does not look like the Indian government was The biggest lesson to be learnt from this is simple. Foreign policy cannot be conducted on the Basis of Personal Chemistry or Friendships Between Leaders of Two Countries.
It is hard material realities which shape their conduct. Trump is only messing with India beCause he can afford to do it without causing a Major Turmoil in the Larger Strategic and Economic Calculus of the US. This is also the reason why Trump is pussyfooting Around China – The Country with which the us has the biggest trade deficit and which is the biggest challenger to us’s’inant status in the working.
However, the same material realities also mean that India cannot reciprocate. Indian Service Sector Companies, Especially in the It Sector; The Limited Examptions India Still Enjoys on Exports to the Us; And the Remittans Indian Americans Send Back Home, Are Still Important Interests Which have to be preserved and for which there are no readily available substitutes in the world. Obvious, India must try to get these tariffs revised. It is time to Swallow Hubris or overcome the shock and get to work.
Russia Can Sell Us Cheaper Crude and Air Defense Systems, but it cannot compensate for the loss of an economic partnership with the us.
There are no free lunches in the world
There are many many who believe that protecting India’s strategic interests is as simple as joining one bandwagon or another. This choice was posd as Soviet Union Versus Us in the Cold War Days and is often presented as mulatilateralism (with chinese characteristics) versus being an american satellite today. Neither of these choice is as simple and costless as it sounds. Placating Trump would have required opening UP India’s Agriculture and Dairy Sector to Heavily Subsidized Amenican Exports and Buying Significly More Expensive Military Hardware from Amrican Companies. Aligning firmly with China, on the other hand, would have entalede taking a part of things as one-ballt-or-road initiative and signing off on a pre-or-ordeenasia of indiaa ‘MANUFACTURING PROSPECTURING PROSPECTURING PROSPECTURED This is one of the reasons India walked away from the RCEP Trade Agreement.
Being the Diverse, Unequal and Large Economy that India is, there a lot of influential players who would stand to Gain from any of these overall sub-optimal choices. Even the muddled status quo – Trump’s tariffs have ended it now – where India has been neither here While feeding off the Natural Economic Momentum of the Economy Most of which comes from its 1.4 billion strong population.
What is to be done?
Patience is key. India must undertake a comprehensive appraisal of its strategic and economycy ability and decide on measuresh can help it come to term to terms with what is likely to be the new global ear Increasingly Protectionist and Abrasive West and An even more dominant China in the manufacturing sector to the extent than it can cripple other counts’ production lines in critical sector. The illusion of some golden parachute of china+1 ensuring a smooth landing of India’s economic transformation challenge
This will not happy through some clickhéd reforms to-do list which many economic commentators parrot. What it needs is a thorough overhaul of the contrast between politics and capital which produces not intelligence national champions that draw their raison d’état from providing PoLitical Finance But Ones that actually provides the much-needed edge to the country’s geo-economic ability. This will entail a Major disrupt in the status quo, but the only other option is outright humiliation and economic death by a thosand cuts.
