There is no hurry to form a judgement on Trump right away. Both President Trump and PM Modi share some traits — not all are complimentary. That may be an advantage, but then again not
National elections and change of Government is routine in most democracies and except for a temporary interest in the outcome, such elections are not subject matters of sustained global interests, except in case of a few major democracies, especially the US. American Presidential elections and the events that precede it generally evoke strong and sustained interest in the electoral results. This is not unusual given the vast expanse of the US influence on global affairs due to its predominant economic and military presence around the world.
Even then, given the orderly nature of power transfer in the US, global interest and concern about its election outcome subsides substantially after some time, except for those countries that have special, real or imaginary relationship with the US. However, as readers of the major national dailies and information outlets around the world would have noticed, that interest is still fueled by the uncertain nature of, or the reasons behind, that transfer of power by the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential elections that resulted in the election of Donald Trump as the 45th President and his assumption of power on January 20, 2017.
Such interest is also intensified because of the actions and behaviour of the President, which, as followers of the major national dailies around the globe would have noticed, has evoked mostly negative views of his presidency. However, since much of the negative image of President Trump is based on the strong negative reaction in the US, which to a large extent, has been influenced by the negative reactions to some of his actions on the domestic front — which may or may not have any appreciable impact on the bilateral relations between US and other countries — it is necessary to make an objective analysis of the potential impact of Trump presidency on such bilateral relations, including that between India and the US.
It is true that President Trump has the lowest Gallup Presidential Approval ratings (40 per cent) amongst all adults since Gallup began these ratings at the time of Harry S Truman. The approval ratings of the immediate past presidents at the corresponding period of their presidency was: Barack Obama (62 per cent), George Bush (62 per cent), and Bill Clinton (59 per cent). Conversely, Trump’s disapproval ratings are the highest at 54 per cent in comparison to Obama (25 per cent), Bush (21 per cent), and Clinton (29 per cent).
Before attempting any such analysis, it is important to study the (possible) changes that have taken place in the US political space. Firstly, it has become highly polarised in recent times. Whatever approval ratings amongst “All Adults” all Presidents have had, including Trump, approval ratings amongst their own party was well in excess of 80 per cent during their term. What has changed in recent times starting with the rise of the Republican ‘Tea Party’ — strictly conservative, anti-establishment candidates who have dominated the party since then. With the rise of the Tea Party, the US polity — especially after 2013 when Obama won his second term as President — has become highly polarised with the incumbent President enjoying very low rates of approval amongst members of the Opposition party.
While in earlier times, the approval ratings amongst members of the Opposition party used to be well over 30 per cent, since then, the average has fallen below 10 per cent. Trump currently has a 6 per cent approval rating amongst Democrats. It should be mentioned in all fairness that if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency, the reverse would be equally true with a high approval rating amongst Democrats and a very low rating amongst Republicans.
While this would have profound impact on the US society, which needs to be studied in depth, it is also true that such changes would have a strong impact on the US foreign policy and bilateral relations. Secondly, there has been a strong rise in the ‘anti-establishment’ bandwagon in both parties. It is not surprising, therefore, that Trump who had no prior experience in any public office, at whatever level, chose to run as an anti-establishment Republican against much of the official/establishment Republicans, and not only won the Republican nomination but went on to win the presidency as well.
Thirdly, globalisation has had profoundly different impact on the developing world and the developed. While in both instances the rich had become richer and the poor poorer, in the former the middle class had been squeezed with stagnant or falling levels or real income in the past decade; in the latter, they have gained substantially in terms of real income. Finally, advances in IC2T (Information, Computer and Communication Technologies) have been steadily reducing the requirements for the on-site presence of human labour for many traditional blue collar and white collar jobs.
Dealing with all these complex issues while attempting to satisfy the aspirations of supporters would require well-thought-out strategies and efficiently executed programmes. Otherwise, ill and hastily thought out programmes could cause more social upheaval with potentially grave foreign policy/relations implications.
It is on these grounds one is apprehensive about President Trump’s innate capability and competence as well as professional experience to effectively manage a team with diverse talents to come up with intelligent programmes, and the experience of the administration during the past one month since he took office, in both domestic and foreign arena, lends credence to such doubts.
First, he has been unable to articulate any philosophical or political underpinning of his ideology. Much of the actions that he has taken or indicated that he will take have been dictated more by his anathema to anything that has any connection to what his predecessor (Barack Obama) or his electoral opponent (Hillary Clinton) did and his penchant to be seen to be doing something that would irk or discomfit the traditional establishment.
Thus, his first acts were to dismantle regulations that had been put in place in defence of environment — (i) removes rules regulating the construction Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPl) designed to carry 500,000 barrels of oil per day through vast stretches of the US territory; (ii) approves all licenses relating to the Keystone Xl Pipeline — a major pipeline to import petroleum products from Canada. Both these had been put on hold by the Obama administration.
He also removed a key requirement from the Obama administration’s key legislation, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) (Obamacare). ACA had enabled some 20 million Americans to have healthcare protection. President Trump and the Republicans had been clamouring to repeal the Act without having any replacement. In a similar vein, he withdrew the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), an initiative of the Obama administration for a major multilateral trade agreement.
Then in a major move on the question of immigration reforms, he signed a series of Executive Orders (EO), again to negate some of the initiatives of Obama administration. One of these, the EO of ‘Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorists’ was so broad in its scope that it was challenged in federal courts by civil society resulting in that EO being stayed by the courts. The Trump administration has chosen not to fight the stay order in the US Supreme Court fearful of the outcome of any such challenge at the moment and instead planning to have a new EO.
However, the rules formulated to execute the other EOs relating to immigration, ‘Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States’ and ‘Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements’, are so broad that there are legitimate fears that many of rules — put in place by the Obama administration to protect law abiding and minor illegal immigrants from forcibly being separated from their families and sent to other countries — will now be disregarded by the immigration authorities with potentially millions being removed from the US.
This is, however, not a foregone conclusion as it is very likely that these would be challenged in courts. The point is not that the President is without any executive powers but that these are being exercised without proper application of mind.
This is because President Trump has been unable to attract/hold any bright and resourceful group of talented persons to staff his administration. This applies to persons at all levels. So far, Trump has been able to put in place only nine of 15 Cabinet appointees. Other Presidents at similar point in time had in place many more Cabinet appointees. President Obama, for instance, had in place 13 of the 15 Cabinet appointees at the corresponding time. The same applies to subcabinet appointees. In the State Department, six of the top nine appointments are still vacant; the remaining three being held by “acting” heads. A large number of civilian appointees at the higher levels of the administration have to be approved by the Senate. So far, Trump has submitted only 59 nominations, while at the corresponding period, his predecessors had nominated and obtained approvals for many more appointees.
The problem has been the reluctance of many qualified and competent persons with sufficient experience to work in an administration that seems to act on whims and fancies (often expressed through tweets). It is unlikely, on the basis of President Trump’s public utterances so far, that he would have much greater success in attracting sufficiently talented people to join his administration. So far, his actions and utterances seem to have been guided by the philosophy of few extreme ideologues of the right.
This could have far-reaching implications both domestically and internationally. The domestic aspects have been discussed earlier in respect of his immigration policies. On foreign policy, his record has not been very encouraging so far. After an initial phone call to the Taiwanese President in violation of all protocol — seeming to question the ‘One China’ policy and creating an international furore — he did finally manage to assuage China’s feelings by accepting, albeit with some qualification, the traditional US ‘One China’ policy.
On the other hand, he managed to displease the Mexican President so much that the latter cancelled his planned visit to Washington. In a similar vein, he managed to annoy the Australian Prime Minister by tweeting that an agreement brokered by Australia with the Obama administration was a “dumb deal”. The Australian Prime Minister, however, downplayed the tweet by saying that while the deal may not have been one Trump would’ve done or considered a “good deal”, the President and his administration have committed to honour it. He has, however, conducted himself much more maturely in his meetings and calls to many of the Heads of State, especially the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Finally, what does a Trump regime portend for India-US bilateral relationsIJ So far nothing that he has done is relevant for our bilateral relations. However, this does not mean that one or more of his domestically influenced actions — whether through legislation or through the advice of some ideologue — may not have an impact in the future. For instance, the rules enforcing his EOs in relation to enhancing security in the US through stricter enforcement of laws on illegal immigrants may not affect illegal Indian immigrants (even though they may form a small percent of total illegal immigrants in the US).
Then again, immigration related action, especially in respect to H1-B visas, could affect India in a negative manner. Much would depend on how the two countries approach the subject, but there can be no doubt that any H1-B related action would have a stronger impact on India than any other country, given that India accounts for well over two-thirds of all H1-B visa holders in the US.
Trade is another area with potential pitfalls. Both President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi would like manufacturing to take place in their respective countries. While in many areas there may not be conflict, it will certainly have some implication for India wanting the US companies to manufacture in India for both the Indian market and exports. What thenIJ
Another potential troubling area could be free trade negotiations. Trump has expressed his opposition to multilateral trade negotiations. India, on the other hand, has preferred bilateral trade negotiations within the broad framework of multilateral treaties. In the absence of such a protective umbrella, would India be the weaker party in a purely bilateral negotiation with the USIJ
The final conclusion is that India needs to wait and watch the current US administration’s policies and actions and scrutinise them carefully. There is no need to hurry to form judgement on Trump administration at this point in time. Both President Trump and PM Modi share some traits, not all of them complimentary. That may be an advantage. But then again not.
The writer is a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses