TRUMP: “HERO” OR “VILLAIN” TO INDIA? AND WHAT FUTURE RELATIONSHIP

President Donald J. Trump is no doubt the most consequential US president Indians have seen, at least for a long while.

- PETER DASH

This is true, irrespective of whether you “love” him or want to see him thrown out of office, or something in between. The below is a summary of ‘Trump as India’s hero, so-to-speak and about his less than stellar actions for India. The consequences and resulting predictions from this analysis follow. What Trump and his possible successor’s attitudes and policies are towards India, now and later will unquestionably impact every Indian to one degree or another, including on jobs, incomes, inflation, borrowing costs and security.

TRUMP THE GOOD FOR INDIA

For India, one of the main criticisms of the US (Democrat to neocon, Republican administrations, mostly )and their sometimes tag along media is their interference in domestic Indian politics, and more broadly other parts of the Global South. This includes too often accusing India of rights abuses, lack of democracy and excessive nationalism. Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden was quite tolerant of letting the US State department doing so in major publicized reports that had questionable content or were excessively critical. And even one major Swedish think tank, V-Dem went ridiculously as far as to say, “..censorship in India was as autocratic as Pakistan and worse than its neighbours Bangladesh and Nepal.” No surprise BBC seemingly at times “hostile” to the Modi government reported this along with Freedom House's critique. All part of a “gang up” (?) by certain western “liberal” interests on India to tell it what it had to do. All as India was one of the most successful economies in the Global South, reducing poverty seriously with emerging and highly successful multinationals, competitive to western ones. Coinciding, Sweden was economically flat lining with serious emerging immigration and racism issues. These types of critics may have interest to see an Opposition in power in India, more pliable to letting Western interests dominate and “plunder” or disadvantage “make in India” policies?