Trump’s triple whammy tests US-India ties

The TOI correspondent from Washington: US President Donald Trump has landed a triple whammy on India by torpedoing the H-1B visa program, days after revoking sanctions waiver on Chabahar port in Iran and weeks after imposing a 50 percent tariff on Indian exports to the US. The Trump White House also maintained a conspicuous silence on the Pakistan-Saudi Arabia mutual defense treaty amid reports that neither country informed Washington of the pact, suggesting a growing US indifference to India’s concerns.

Although the MAGA supremo did not specifically mention India while bringing down the hammer on the H-1B program on Friday, and nor did the administration in reference to Chabahar earlier in the week, the triple blow has shaken US-India ties to its foundations, mystifying experts who expected a reset in ties after an exchange of friendly messages between leaders of the two countries over the past week.


Terming the latest blow “more bad India-US news,” Derek Grossman, a National Security and Indo-Pacific analyst, sarcastically asked, “How’s the reset going?” Even as India’s commerce minister Piyush Goyal is heading to Washington this week to advance a trade deal that both sides have indicated is imminent.

While some observers see in the crackdown on H1B a pressure tactic to bend India on the trade deal, sources familiar with the dynamics of the current White House says the two issues are unrelated and President Trump was convinced of the need to “reform” the guest worker visa program ever since MAGA hardliners persuaded him that American workers were being gamed out of jobs by foreign companies and US big tech acting in tandem. “Nothing excites him more than visions of billions of dollars in revenue and they played that up for him,” a tech honcho who has worked with White House on the issue said on background to preserve his access. “He now truly believes big tech should pay Uncle Sam top dollar if they truly want top talent and that will be a win-win for the US.”

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On security issues too, experts see a completely haphazard approach in Washington with sections of the administration working at cross purposes. In a recent conversation, a former White House official said the State Department and the Pentagon (now Department of War) appeared to be on a totally different wavelength, hewing to long-established policy of advancing ties with India, while the White House is “on it’s own trip.” The former official said there is very little regional expertise in the White House now and interagency meetings convened by the National Security Council have been virtually abandoned, replaced by individuals who have the President’s ear advising him on matters on which they have no domain knowledge.

In a stunning development last week, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defense pact that apparently includes a nuclear cover, days after Israel bombed Doha to take out purported Hamas operatives being hosted Qatar to discuss peace proposals. Although Trump rebuked Israel, saying he was "not thrilled" about the strike, US claims that it was notified about the impending attack, but it was too late to stop it, unnerved its allies in the region, eroding trust in American security guarantees.

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“It’s a s**tshow…no one really knows what is happening…they are just winging it day to day,” the former official said, pointing to Trump’s latest statement that the US wants to get back control of the Bagram Air base in Afghanistan because it is only "an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons.”

Indian sources say there will be plenty of “conversations” on all these issues this coming week when external affairs minister S Jaishankar comes to New York for the annual UN General Assembly session, on the sidelines of which he is expected to meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his team. But it has become increasingly apparent in Washington that the mercurial MAGA supremo is marching to his own tune and the rest of his cabinet is trying to follow him as best as they can without challenging him.