Stand To On The Pacific

Though a great trade deal is elusive, the grand India-US CGSP has been arrived at through sedulous work over 15 years

- C. Uday Bhaskar

THE maiden visit of US President Donald Trump to India (February 24-25), with the distinctive high visibility that was on display in Ahmedabad, has led to a semantically significant politico-diplomatic outcome, in that the two nations are now framing their bilateral relationship as a ‘Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership’ (CGSP).

This was publicly announced by PM Narendra Modi in the Motera stadium on Monday to a crowd of over 100,000, when he described the texture of India’s relationship with the US and used the words ‘comprehensive’ and ‘global’ to precede the strategic partnership that had been mooted with the US as far back as 2004.

It was formally noted in the joint statement issued when Trump and Modi “vowed to strengthen a India United States Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership, anchored in mutual trust, shared interests, goodwill, and robust engagement of their citizens”.

India has almost 30 strategic partnership agreements, beginning with France in 1998, but this is the first time that such a lofty turn of phrase has been invoked and the contour and content of the freshly minted CGSP with the US merits preliminary scrutiny.