Trump to raise issue of trade barriers by India
PRESIDENTIAL VISIT India-pak relations, religious freedom to figure in talks
WASHINGTON:
US President Donald Trump will raise concerns over rising trade barriers and tariffs during his India visit starting on Monday, according to senior Trump administration officials, who went on to put the blame for the widely anticipated failure of the announcement of a deal “wholly” on India. He will also call for equal treatment of religious minorities and urge India and Pakistan to resolve their differences bilaterally.
“Whether or not there will be an announcement on a trade package is, really, wholly dependent upon what the Indians are prepared to do,” said one of the officials who previewed the president’s visit for reporters. The official sought to blame the failure of the two sides to come to an agreement on a spate of recent announcements by the Indian government that made “discussions a bit more difficult”.
The official took aim specifically at Make in India, one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet programmes, “Recent announcements on Make in India have made the protectionism concerns in India even greater,” the official said, hold
ing it responsible for the failure of the trade talks, without specifying any announcement.
Prospects of a trade deal being announced during the American president’s two-day visit have dimmed considerably in recent days despite Trump’s efforts to talk it up in public rallies and remarks. He has spoken of a “big deal,” a “tremendous deal” that could be announced now or perhaps after the November presidential election, which appears more likely given the long list of concerns the United States wants India to address.
The United States has sought more access to Indian markets in dairy and poultry, removal of medical devices from price control regimes and, as the American official argued, lower trade barriers and tariffs, which have been rising, citing recent tariffs on certain imports from the United States and continued “important divergences on e-commerce and digital trade”.
President Trump begins his India visit in Ahmedabad, where he lands on Monday with first lady Melania Trump, eldest daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump, son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner. Cabinet members accompanying him will be secretary of commerce Wilbur Ross and secretary of energy Dan Brouillette .Other officials will include chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, National Security Adviser Robert O’brien and the president’s senior policy advisor Stephen Miller, a controversial immigration hawk .
The president will address a public rally at Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad with Prime Minister Modi. They will leave shortly after for Agra, with the rest of the team, and reach Delhi later Monday. Trump will be accorded a ceremonial welcome the next day and he is then scheduled to hold delegationlevel meetings with the Indian leader. The day will be capped by a state dinner at the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the Americans leave for home the same night.
Trade has been one of the chief irritants in the relationship and it has defied resolution for years, across administrations. Trump has sought to address it more aggressively than his predecessors. The United States terminated India’s eligibility for a preferential trade system called the Generalized System of Preferences, last summer for not granting the US more access to its markets.
Those concerns remain, said one of the officials, adding, “It was really the failure of the Indian government to provide equitable and reasonable access to its markets in numerous sectors.” The list of US complaints has since grown, according to the officials, with new additions coming in recent weeks. And President Trump will bring them up with Prime Minister Modi.
The American leader will also bring up the issue of religious freedom. “President Trump will talk about our shared tradition of democracy and religious freedom both in his public remarks and then certainly in private,” one of the official said when asked if the president will address issues related to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act that grants Indian citizenship to persecuted non-muslim refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and the proposed
National Citizenship Register that seeks to identify illegal immigrants living in India.
“He will raise these issues, particularly the religious freedom issue, which is extremely important to this administration,” the official added.
This will not be the first time for an American president to raise the issue of religious freedom on an India visit. “India will succeed so long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious faith — so long as it’s not splintered along any lines — and is unified as one nation,” President Barack Obama said in January 2015, during his second visit to India, when he had also become the first American president to attend the Republic Day parade as chief guest.
President Trump, who is known to abandon the scripted speech and ad-lib in public remarks, will also be closely observed on a key sensitive issue for India, Kashmir. “What you’ll hear from the President is very much encouraging a reduction in tensions between India and Pakistan, encouraging the two countries to engage in bilateral dialogue with each other to resolve their differences,” the official said in response to a question.
That’s the standard US position, held across administrations, but President Trump had sought to insert himself into the dispute with repeated offers to mediate, possibly to appease Pakistan, whose help he has courted in recent months to end the US war in Afghanistan by negotiating a peace deal with the Taliban, who were created, run and managed by Pakistan’s Inter-services Intelligence spy agency.
“We continue to believe a core foundation of any successful dialogue between the two is based on continued momentum in Pakistan’s efforts to crack down on terrorists and extremists on its territory,” said one of the officials, acknowledging and affirming Pakistan’s support of terrorism as a main obstacle to peace in the region.