Trump's Reversals: Implications for Jobs and Livelihoods in India

Formal finance for new livelihood aspirants in urban spaces can be facilitated by municipal-ward-level self-help groups

- INDIRA RAJARAMAN

Spectacular policy reversals in the United States have seized the news. The tariff and Ukraine wars dominate headlines, but those involve selected targets, not including India so far. The more universally targeted cleanout of "illegal aliens" in the US carries a message that is abundantly clear. The US has further suggested that voices in Europe demanding a similar cleanout of their migrants are being wrongfully suppressed.

Although only a few hundred deportees so far have been of Indian origin, there are serious implications for Indian labor market entrants. Nation states across the globe are now squarely responsible for providing jobs and livelihoods for populations within their respective borders. Migrants with high skills or investible capital will be invited into the US and elsewhere, leaving behind a labor pool of whom some will be skilled, but the majority not skilled suitably for absorption into jobs in the formal sector, leaving them to find their own means of survival.