India-US relationship will witness a new high
US President Donald Trump's conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, just four days after assuming office, indicates closer bilateral ties between both the nations. Modi was one of the very few world leaders whom Trump chose to call and termed India “a true friend and partner”. This hammers home the point that under the Trump Administration, India will enjoy special status. Even during former President Barack Obama's tenure in office, India made considerable progress in elevating the country's ties with the US. Both, Obama and Modi, shared a connection and invested tremendous amount of time and political capital to raise the bilateral relations, which were at a great low during the previous UPA regime at the Centre. Now, with Trump taking over, New Delhi must see to it that it does not lose steam and engage with the new President in good spirit. As President Trump is showing eagerness to walk an extra mile, to work with India, Modi must seize this opportunity and enhance this relationship.
During their conversation, both leaders vowed to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in their fight against the menace of global terrorism. Since both nations are victims of Islamic terror, they need to find all commonalities to work together. For India, it would be an opportune time to press the Trump establishment to cut sizeable amount of aid to Pakistan. This will be a good lesson for Islamabad, as it is the home to a large number of thejihadi organisations that constantly foment violence back home. Even during his election campaign, Trump termed India “a key strategic ally”. From this, we could sense that despite having his strange electoral rhetoric and populist nationalist agenda, he had an intention to make India a real partner of his nation. Though he had spoken volumes against many other nations, but he kept the large Indian diaspora in the US and India always in good humour. Even he touted himself as “big fan of Hindu and big fan of India”. This immensely helped him to corner a large portion of Indian voters in his side, despite the goodwill generated by Obama with India during his two terms of presidency.
Today, the global community is encountering serious problems starting from environmental pollution to rising Islamic terror. Therefore, the partnership between the two largest democracies of the world, is widely expected, as it will contribute to the shaping of a comprehensive solution to many of these critical issues. While moving forward to a Trump era, Modi must see to it that the new leader does not give a hard blow to the H-1B visas that have greatly benefitted the Indian professionals and, particularly, the IT companies with American operations. Trump's new policies to streamline the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs back from India, must be observed closely by Delhi. In fact, a large number of US-based multi-national corporations (MNCs) have their operations in India, and in turn, the latter is hugely been able to employ a good number of its workforce in them. If Trump takes a hard decision on these MNCs, India will be hurt in many ways. Therefore, when the two leaders meet, Modi can rightly pursue him so that his “America first” policy will not have a negative impact on India.