Like
many other nations, India has suffered from Trump’s volatile,
unpredictable and transactional behaviour since 2016. Trump might call
the president-elect “sleepy Joe”, but India will settle for ‘steady
Joe’.
On the foreign policy front, Biden has affirmed that he will
bring the United States of America back into the fold of the Paris
climate change agreement. That’s important for New Delhi because one of
America’s commitments under that pact involves the US helping finance
the transition of emerging economies like India to cleaner technologies.
More broadly, the US under Biden is expected to return to global
institutions like the WHO that Trump had withdrawn from. Without the US,
such multilateral institutions are dominated by China, which is not in
India’s interests.Biden is also expected to review — if not reverse —
the Trump administration’s controversial peace agreement with the
Taliban. It’s unclear whether Trump will follow through on his threat to
further cut US troop presence in Afghanistan and Iraq in January and
whether Biden will send American soldiers back to those war zones. What
is known is that Biden’s administration, staffed and advised by
traditional foreign policy experts and diplomats from the Barack Obama
era, will be less willing than Trump to leave Afghanistan in the hands
of the Taliban. Again, that’s good for India, which would like the US
troops to stay in that nation as a buffer against the Taliban and their
backers in Pakistan’s military.
With Iran, too, Biden’s win could
mean better days for India. A raft of rigid economic sanctions imposed
on Iran by Trump have meant that India has effectively had to stall its
promised development of the Chabahar port — a strategic investment by New Delhi
to outflank China’s Gwadar port in Pakistan. With India unable to
pursue the port project, Iran had over the past year turned to China for
help, much to New Delhi’s chagrin. Biden’s expected to return to
negotiations with Iran, and potentially lift some of the sanctions
imposed by Trump. Sure, New Delhi will need to win back Tehran’s trust
but that possibility at least exists.
India-US economic relations
could also improve. Biden’s unlikely to whimsically impose higher
tariffs on Indian goods and New Delhi is hopeful that he will bring
India back within the ambit of the Generalized System of Preferences.
Under that system, India had benefited from preferential tariffs until
Trump withdrew that protection.
But let’s be clear: much of India’s
expectations are based on Biden’s past positions. It’s vital for New
Delhi to remember that Biden will try and escape the shadow of Obama and
carve out his own legacy. The deeply divided nature of yank politics — a record 73 million people voted for Trump — means Biden won't be ready to reverse all of the outgoing president’s policies, and certainly not anytime soon.
Some of that could work to India’s advantage. With Trump and Biden trying to outdo one another
in recent months in showing who’s tougher on China, it’s unlikely that
the president-elect will walk back on America’s recent steps to
strengthen strategic relations with India, Australia and Japan under
their Quadrilateral partnership.
There will be speed bumps. For one,
expect Biden to gently raise Washington’s concerns over India’s
crackdown in Kashmir with Modi. Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris has
likewise critiqued the Indian government’s positions on human rights in
the past.
But those won't
be too difficult to navigate unless the Modi government lets political
ego interfere with the shared interests that bind India and America.
Just as mistaking Trump for America was always an error, India’s
interests aren’t identical to the political agenda of the ruling
Bharatiya Janata Party.
(With input from news agency language)
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