Does US President-elect Donald Trump have a vision for the India relationship?
“I think he has a vision for what is in his political interest,” said Arun Singh, former ambassador to the US (2015-16). “Certainly he attaches value to the relationship and that was clear during Trump 1.0.”
Arun Singh pointed to Trump’s outreach to the Indian-American community, his revitalising the Quad which had been languishing since 2007, started talking of an Indo-Pacific strategy for the first time, even renaming the Hawaii-based Pacific Command as the Indo-Pacific Command.
Singh was a guest on The Gist, talking about India-US relations ahead of Trump’s formal inauguration. He believes Trump saw value in the bilateral relationship with India and even more so in the context of China.
He underscored several other initiatives of Trump: the two+two meeting of foreign and defence ministers of the two countries. He placed India on SDR Level 1 strategic trade authorisation, which upgraded India to the top when it came to technology sharing.
“I think the message from the US was that they saw a strong India in its own right, even if it was not overtly anti-China, to be a natural constraint on unilateral and assertive postures that Beijing might take.”
Singh says key appointments Trump has made, including that of Marco Rubio as secretary of state and Mike Waltz as national security adviser, are good for India not only because of their strong anti-China credentials.
Waltz was co-chair of the India Caucus and encouraged even the Democratic administration to take positive steps with regard to India. Rubio has warned against sanctioning India for its purchases from Russia and urged high level of technology sharing.
The US relationship is very consequential for India, Singh said, pointing to the high level of US investment in this country ($60 billion) and the fact that Indian investment in the US has not lagged either ($40 billion).
Tune in for more in this conversation with Ambassador Arun Singh.
