No Problems With The US – Yet!

Donald Trump’s ‘Only America’ move has not had any effect yet on exports from India but air cargo stakeholders maintain that pharma products could feel the heat in the future. A report from TIRTHANKAR GHOSH.

- Tirthankar Ghosh

US President Donald Trump and his idea of doing business with the world has been causing quite a bit of apprehension in Indian business circles. Captains of industry refer to President Trump pointing an accusatory finger at India and China taking away a lot of the US’ business. One of the first public declarations that India would find it difficult to do business with the US came from India’s Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian who mentioned the H-1B visa and Trump’s desire to do away with it altogether. “My concern,” said Subramanian, “is that Trump in his last debate, said – ‘H- 1B, whatever it is, I use it but I don’t like it. I want to scrap all H-1B visas.’ That’s very worrying for India’s export-led growth going forward.”

The H-1B visas do not come on the radar of the air cargo community. In fact, it is anxious to see what the future holds for air exports to the USA. For the moment, however, it has not seen any ups or downs in the exports to Trump country. Said Ramesh Mamidala, CEO, Celebi Delhi Cargo Terminal Management India Pvt Ltd, “We have not seen any impact on exports from India so far, although it is still too early.” He, however, pointed out that “based on my understanding of the new regime’s vision for growth of the USA, I believe, in the long term, the knowledge based organisations (applying for H-1B visas) that depend on exports of their services to the USA might be impacted”.