“Washington Should Draw New Delhi Closer, Not Push It Away.” That’s the subhead on a new Foreign Affairs piece by Kurt Campbell and Jake Sullivan. No kidding. Anyone with common sense and an ounce of strategic thinking understands this. It is for good reason that the U.S.-India bilateral relationship has grown closer over the past 25 years. It has served each nation's interests to do so.
Of course, the current U.S. Administration is doing exactly the opposite, pushing India away, prompting India, China, Russia, and Iran to forge better relations, and continuing to move the U.S. to the sidelines of global leadership. Preposterously, it’s likely true that the U.S. President’s pique with India that helped prompt the deterioration in bilateral relations - and the resulting imposition of 50 percent tariffs on Indian goods - owes much to his belief that Prime Minister Modi showed insufficient gratitude to him for his supposed role in settling the recent India-Pakistan dust-up. Yikes!
Yes, one deals with Modi's India with eyes wide open. He is a Hindu nationalist and rank populist, sometimes singing from the same autocratic hymnal used by rulers in Russia, China, Hungary, and the U.S. And yes, one can salute the U.S. Administration for getting tough with India on its Russian oil imports that are helping to circumvent sanctions on Moscow, but 50 percent tariffs on Indian imports is not the way to do it. It's like slicing sardines with a sledgehammer.
Nonetheless, India remains a democracy. It is joins the U.S. as the two largest democracies in the world, at least for now. India, Indians, and Indian-Americans continue to make massive contributions to the U.S. economy and culture. We do not want to push India and Indians away as, for example, the U.S. is doing right now by imposing an ill-considered $100,000 fee on H-IB work visas. This will be costly for U.S. businesses and reduce the overall talent pool.
It is time to work substantively to improve the U.S.-India bilateral relationship, put some distance between New Delhi and Moscow as well as New Delhi and Tehran and, in the process, bolster U.S. competitive position and global standing. This will not happen by pushing India away through imposition of clumsy tariffs and visa restrictions.
Image courtesy of the Hoover Institution.