the Republican Party is making a big push towards overthrowing the traditional American consensus on a range of issues:
  • free trade,
  • alliances,
  • open borders, and
  • US support for post war global institutions built by Washington.
1: TRADE & ECONOMIC GLOBALISATION The Republican convention has unhesitatingly backed Trump’s anti-globalisation Instincts.
  • The GOP wants to stop outsourcing production to the rest of the world (at the cost of working people at home), and “make America a manufacturing superpower”
  • The main instrument for this is the declared Trump plan for a big hike in tariffs on imports (10% for all imports, 60% for imports from China).
  • Trade issues that were an important irritant in India’s engagement with Trump in the first term, will now be a serious challenge, addressing which will i0nvolve rethinking India’s own trade strategies.

2: SECURITY & ALLIANCES

  • On security, India might be better placed than US allies in Europe and Asia that fear US abandonment.
  • The Republicans are not seeking to isolate America from the world. They want greater reciprocity.
  • On the face of it, as a non-ally, India is not part of that argument; but the military partnership with the US is very much central today to India’s defence calculus with an ever so assertive China on its frontiers.
  • Although the India-US convergence is real, Delhi has thus far been hesitant in translating that into concrete military arrangements.
  • The idea that India can play all sides without making commitments to any one might be harder to pursue under Trump, who plans to shake down US great power relations.
3: DEMOCRACY & INTERVENTIONISM The Republican focus on battling “woke ideology” at home is accompanied by an opposition to liberal internationalism, and all that it entailed — including the obsession with promotion of democracy and human rights, and a penchant for political interventionism around the world. This should make many of the traditional arguments between Indian governments and American liberal elites less significant in the a second Trump term. 4: IMMIGRATION & OPEN BORDERS Indian elites have been a major beneficiary of America’s open border policies since the 1960s. But immigration has become a toxic issue in US domestic politics, and the Republican platform talks about “sealing the border against migrant invasion” and “carrying out the largest deportation operation” in American history. India should be able to work with the Trump Administration on facilitating legal immigration so critical for US business, while curbing illegal migration. 5: CLIMATE & ENERGY The Republicans are determined to bring down the Biden Administration’s expansive agenda of “green transition”. Trump is promising to make America an “energy superpower” through industrial policy. He plans to support a rapid expansion of hydrocarbon drilling. The Trump years saw India Engage with America’s big oil companies. India might be prudent to reconnect with them. For India, which is a major oil importer, Trump’s US could become a more important energy partner.