Kem Chho Trump!

Eisenhower. Nixon. Carter. Clinton. Bush. Obama.

And now, Donald Trump.

There's a slight contextual difference between the pre-2000 visits and the ones post-2000, starting with Clinton's. Eisenhower, Nixon and Carter's visits were more about building strategic alliances and less about trade and economy.

After the liberalisation of trade in the 1990s, India emerged as a significant economic power in the 21st century. Being the second most populous country in the world, the US looked at India as an important market both for defence, civil technology and consumer products and trade started to feature as a major agenda along with geopolity, starting with Clinton.

In this article, we are going to talk about Trump's India visit - his first, scheduled on February 24 and 25 and try to figure out the possible outcomes the visit might have on trade and economic relations between the two nations.

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Hosting Trump in his home state, PM Modi has left no stone unturned to give him a rousing welcome.

Trump is supposed to visit Ahmedabad, then Agra and finally Delhi, before returning to the US. In the newly built Motera Stadium, he would be taking the stage with Narendra Modi, in an event which has been aptly named 'Namaste Trump' - similar to the 'Howdy Modi' event in Houston last year. The two also had a phone call sometime during the second weekend of February, after which Trump confirmed that “I just spoke with Prime Minister Modi, and - I don’t know who’s going - but he said we’ll have millions and millions of people”.

India and the US, both have traditionally played hardball when it comes to compromising in order to ink deals.

In fact, last year, the Trump administration removed India from the Generalized System of Preferences, a US trade scheme for developing nations. The GSP helped India by providing the Indian exports with tariff-free access to the US market. Trump's move to extend the tariffs on Steel and Aluminium to downstream products has also left Indian powerhouses like the Jindals unhappy with their investments being locked in a state of uncertainty and jeopardy. India, on its part, retaliated with tariffs and levies on US products.

More recently, finance minister Nirmala Seetharaman announced higher tariffs on medical devices and other products, a market dominated by American exports, in her budget speech earlier this month. Some of the American tech giants are also upset due to the new data laws that the Indian government is thinking of implementing and these firms feel the laws would be hugely detrimental in furthering the tech atmosphere in this country.

Trump, however, summarises this concisely: “We’re not treated very well by India, but I happen to like Prime Minister Modi a lot."

India, too, can't really afford to take a confrontative stance currently, especially considering that it backed out of the RCEP last year.

India has offered to reduce tariffs on American crops and provide them with a greater market reach and has also offered to reduce the duties levied on Harley Davidson Inc.'s motorcycles. Harley has been cherry-picked because Trump has often cited the duties levied on Harley as an example of India's protectionist policies. Interestingly, Harley is manufactured in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, two of the “perennial” swing states, and thus this might have electoral implications too. Clearly, India wants its GSP privileges to be restored and is trying its best to reach a compromise.

From the security and defence perspective, an Integrated Air Defence Weapon System has been approved to be sold to India, right on the heels of the Trump visit: this deal might have far-reaching strategic implications as well. An approval for 24 MH-60R Seahawk helicopters and a deal with Lockheed Martin for their F21 fighter aircrafts and their help in developing next gen fighter jets, might also materialise. There could also be preliminary discussions on India joining the US led Blue-Dot network, which is an alternative to China's Belt and Road Initiative.

The two sides have also signed a few agreements: the Industrial Security Annex (ISA) and three agreements under the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative to secure technology transfer and co-produce critical technologies and a number of agreements ranging from greater interaction between elected representatives to collaborate in space, science and technology, water and people-to-people exchange. A few MoUs are also expected to be signed, one between NPCI and Westinghouse for six nuclear reactors and another between India and the US on Intellectual Property Rights.

The US would also be looking to strike deals so as to reduce their trade deficit with India, which in 2018-19 stood at $16.9 billion, as much as possible.

As a matter of fact, figures released on the 23rd of February show US is now India’s top trading partner, with China in the second place. Bilateral trade between India and US, for the period of April-September 2019 stood at $68 billion, against that of India-China, which stood at $64.96 billion.

However, nobody is really expecting the US-India trade pact to be finalised, more so with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer giving this India tour a miss. Trump himself has been quoted as saying "We can have a trade deal with India, but I am really saving the big deal for later, maybe before elections. But we will have a very big deal with India." But, a smaller deal, which would set a positive tone for further discussions in the future is expected, and only then can this visit be called a success from an economic perspective.