Transactional dimension will define India-US ties

Lutnick and Navarro are not India people; they see trade and business through the prism of a broad-based economic value proposition to Make America Great Again (MAGA).

- Rudra Chaudhuri

This is the sentiment across Washington DC. Howard Lutnick is the US secretary of commerce. Peter Navarro is President Donald Trump's senior counsellor for trade and manufacturing. The point being made was that unlike in the Joe Biden era, the size and quality of the India file in the White House is unlikely to be determined by an overarching grand strategic commitment to India.

It will be informed, at least as interlocutors put it, by the extent to which both countries manage a trade deal. Further, what is clear is that Trump would like to see speedy progress on changes made to India's Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage (CNLD) Act, paving the way for American firms to sell small modular reactors (SMR) and other civil nuclear equipment to India. The extant of liabilities in the existing Act, global firms claim, have made it difficult if not impossible to realise the potential of the so-called US-India nuclear deal inked in October 2008.

The equation, as far as Washington insiders are concerned, goes something like this. Address the two sets of frictions highlighted earlier here and this will, in turn, unblock deeper and wide-ranging cooperation in cross-cutting sectors such as technology, defence, energy, and through plurilateral arrangements. These insiders claim that in these segments, the Trump administration is willing to "go further" than any before it.