INDIA’S TIME OF reckoning has come―with a new America and, to some extent, with an emerging new world following the assumption of the most powerful office on earth by the redoubtable Donald Trump.
The week before Republic Day is normally a quiet period for the government of India, except in Rashtrapati Bhavan and the ministry of defence. These two institutions are primarily responsible for the parade and other celebrations.
This year has been different. At Vanijya Bhawan, the spanking new headquarters of the ministry of commerce and industry, the midnight oil was being burned in the days immediately after Trump’s inauguration to discuss possible new tariffs on India. Trump has stated that he wants reciprocity in trade and has threatened measures to achieve that goal. India has a trade surplus of $36 billion with the US (in 2023-24) and is among the top 10 countries with a surplus. China, of course, is the primary villain in Trump’s eyes, with a surplus nearly 10 times that of India’s. However, this logic may not carry much weight with the new administration in Washington, which may not spare New Delhi while demanding reciprocity. This is a significant concern in corporate boardrooms in Mumbai, as the US is India’s biggest trade partner.
At the Jawaharlal Nehru Bhawan, officials of the ministry of external affairs have been equally busy. The MEA’s top brass, including Minister S. Jaishankar, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and other officials, have been visiting the US. In addition, various influencers, strategic thinkers, and “friends” of America have been in the US with the tacit support of the MEA. The ten-and-a-half-hour time difference between New Delhi and Washington has necessitated MEA officials staying awake to discuss strategy and continuously brief their superiors.
After Trump’s victory, his cabinet and sub-cabinet choices have been closely monitored by New Delhi. The most high-profile job in any US administration is that of the secretary of state. However, foreign policy is mostly decided in the White House, especially concerning China, Russia, the European Union and West Asia. The history of India-US relations over the past quarter-century―since New Delhi emerged as a factor in Washington’s calculations―shows that the MEA has consistently used Congress as a pressure point on both the White House and the state department to influence policies in its favour. For many years, the India caucus has been the largest one on Capitol Hill, even surpassing the Israel caucus.
Taranjit Singh Sandhu, who served as ambassador to Washington for four years from 2020, played a key role in establishing the India caucus in the House during his first US posting in the 1990s. It is an open secret that Jaishankar wanted Sandhu to continue during this transitional period, but he chose to join politics and contest Lok Sabha elections from his home town, Amritsar.
Despite looming uncertainties over Trump’s policies, India is not without other personnel resources to engage with the new Washington. The incumbent foreign secretary served as a counsellor for congressional liaison at the embassy in Washington for three years, and the current ambassador, Vinay Kwatra, was a minister in charge of commerce at the mission. Together, they bring a combination of economic and political-diplomatic expertise to this critical time for India.
However, a major concern for New Delhi became a reality on January 20, when Trump selected Jamieson Greer as the US trade representative (USTR), a cabinet-level post. The USTR, along with the commerce secretary, will recommend tariffs, which Trump has threatened to impose reciprocally. Clues from Trump’s first presidency suggest that with Greer leading US trade policy, India will not have a free pass into American markets.
On February 20, 2020, four days before Trump’s presidential visit to Ahmedabad and New Delhi, Greer worked tirelessly to reach a “limited trade deal” with India. This deal was then USTR Robert Lighthizer’s idea after India refused to negotiate a full and comprehensive trade agreement in the run-up to Trump’s state visit. Greer, as Lighthizer’s troubleshooter and chief of staff, played a pivotal role. By coincidence, I witnessed the intense back and forth between the offices of the USTR and Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal through an influential Indian-American Republican who had served in successive US administrations.
Goyal and his aides refused to discuss the limited trade deal proposed by Greer through this intermediary. The intermediary later confided that the Modi government did not want serious business discussions to dampen the excellent atmospherics from the “Namaste Trump” rally in the world’s largest cricket stadium or the Taj Mahal, where Trump and First Lady Melania posed for customary photos. India’s strategy at the time was to keep Trump content during his first term and conduct business in his second term. That calculation fell through when Joe Biden defeated Trump in the subsequent election. Ever since, Lighthizer―and Greer by close association―has viewed the failure to secure even a limited trade deal with India as a blemish on his tenure. Greer, as the new USTR, is unlikely to forgive or forget.
The Biden administration paved the way in its final month for India’s smooth engagement with the Trump team in key areas of bilateral relations, reflecting the bipartisan goodwill India enjoys in the US. It is a reasonable assumption that the file concerning the attempted assassination of Khalistan promoter Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on US soil, allegedly orchestrated by Indian operatives, will eventually be closed. Trump’s nomination of Harmeet Dhillon as assistant attorney general for civil rights has caused some concern in New Delhi, as she has been outspoken about the Pannun case. She is expected to prolong the matter, which is currently in court. However, overall, the Trump administration is unlikely to prioritise human rights as a significant cause, unlike its predecessor.
Sixteen years after the conclusion of the India-US nuclear deal, successive administrations have continued to delay leftover actions, such as de-listing certain Indian nuclear facilities from sanctions. On January 6, Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan completed that process in New Delhi. Without these parting “gifts” from Biden’s White House, India would have had to lobby the new Republican team early in its tenure on issues like collaboration on space and clean energy supply chains. By resolving several pending issues, Sullivan and his Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, eliminated the need for India to approach the Trump administration on critical technology transfers until January 2026.
The allure of India for the past three US administrations has been the flow of large orders for American defence equipment. India has been liberal with such orders, creating jobs in the US, increasing exports, and reducing the trade deficit. Under the new Trump administration, this focus is expected to shift from defence trade to energy purchases from the US. As the world’s third-largest consumer of oil, India is courted by every oil-producing country, from Indonesia and Iran to Russia and Venezuela. Trump described US oil reserves as “liquid gold” in his inaugural address and a means to make Americans rich again. Taking a cue from this speech, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri promptly welcomed “more US energy coming into the global market”.
This will likely resonate with Trump, who has a short attention span and is easily influenced. India’s strategy will be to convince Trump that there is no daylight between him and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in advancing their shared goals. This approach worked during Trump’s first term, and there is no reason it should not succeed again.
The author was a foreign correspondent in Washington.