Why friction between India, US is rising when the two nations are trying to improve ties

Ties between India and US remain somewhat awkward, marked by periods of intense engagement with the promise of elevating relations to a new height.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is known to greet world leaders he meets with a big bear hug and President Donald Trump likes to shake hands with a bone-crushing grip. When they appeared together on the lawns of the White House on June 27 last year, they did a bit of both. And it was a bit awkward.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi meet US President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington DC. (PTI File Photo)

Ties between the countries too remain somewhat awkward, marked by periods of intense engagement with the promise of elevating relations to a new height – the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy called India a “leading global power”, not the “regional power” it was under President Barack Obama.

More recently, there has been a marked uptick in economic frictions, with Trump’s sharp rhetoric and protectionist measures, including tariffs on steel and aluminium, that have added to a long list of differences over market access and intellectual property rights.

There is also the threat of “secondary sanctions” that could curtail India’s ability to buy oil from Iran, its third largest supplier, and weapons such as the S-400 air defence systems from Russia, a long-time and trusted supplier of military hardware (though there is understanding of India’s concerns on this).

Former secretary of state Rex Tillerson described India and the US as the “two bookends of stability” in a much cited speech before his first visit to New Delhi. Most recently, the US rechristened its Hawaii-based Pacific Command as the Indo-Pacific Command in a nod to growing defence ties.

And in a move that was bound to be cheered in New Delhi, Trump started 2018 with a blistering attack on Pakistan for its “lies and deceit” on countering terror, suspended nearly $2 billion in security aid and pushed a global financial watchdog to place Pakistan on its list of countries that fund terrorism.

But there have been chastening developments, such as the tightening of rules applying to H-1B visas and the targeting of Indian companies that are among its heaviest users.

There is also Trump’s rhetoric, when he accused India of demanding billions in exchange for committing to reduce its carbon emissions as part of the Paris climate accord, or when he first brought up India’s tariffs on Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

He has continued to lash out at India publicly and privately, the most recent instance being before leaving for the G-7 summit. This tirade and the postponement of the 2+2 dialogue, said Alyssa Ayres of the Council on Foreign Relations, “have shifted my thinking to the ‘worried’ category’” to describe the state of ties between the two sides, which she oversaw as a state department official in the Obama administration.

India and the US have a “long laundry list of economic frictions” and the Trump administration is adding to them.

But Shailesh Kumar, a former US treasury official and now an expert with the Eurasia Group, said, “Trump’s comments on India are the lightest and softest he has given of any country that has a trade surplus with the US. Thus, on a relative basis, his comments regarding India should not be seen in a negative light.”

The last minute US announcement regarding the postponement of the 2+2 dialogue was frustrating for both sides, officials have said.

Though the US has not announced if Pompeo is scheduled to visit North Korea around then, there is speculation he might be headed to Pyongyang for his third visit to discuss ways to move forward on issues discussed by Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in Singapore.

Ayres counts the 2+2 postponement, so Pompeo “could visit the dictator of North Korea”, as something that worries her as well. “President Obama (or presidents George Bush or Bill Clinton) would never have done this,” she said.