With Trump at helm, India keeps fingers crossed

India has a huge trade surplus with US — over $20 billion a year in the past five years.

• US is the biggest merchandise export destination (among countries) for India 
• India has huge trade surplus with US — over $20 billion a year in the past five years 
• Policies of the Donald Trump administration, in terms of protecting US interests, are bound to be vital concern for India  
• New Delhi is yet to engage with the new US administration over trade issues 
• Intellectual property: India is already one of the worst offenders in the eyes of the US administration in terms of intellectual property regime. But, we used our bilateral platform, India-US Trade Policy Forum, with the Obama administration to make it see sense, for instance about our drugs industry in terms of generics 

Trade expert Biswajit Dhar says:

“The Obama administration, over the past two years has been telling New Delhi that it should do something about trade deficit that US has with India. If, instead of market forces, the Trump administration manages trade, it can have serious implications globally, including for India. But, since the Trump administration is talking about protecting US interest, it would be another area which India needs to watch out.”

Trade barriers

India and US have been at loggerheads over poultry and solar energy, which the former lost out in WTO. However, if there are barriers imposed by the US that hurt India's interests, then New Delhi will certainly have to redo what it does in terms of its engagement, even in terms of challenging US in WTO, feels Dhar.

Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters.