PTI
New York, June 18: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump are “deal-makers” who are willing to break with past practice to accomplish things, a renowned expert on India and Asia has said.
“The Trump administration wants export markets and India wants investments. Somewhere in there, there is a deal. These two leaders are deal-makers and they are both willing to break with past practice and past policy to accomplish things,” Senior Fellow for India with the Asia Society Policy Institute
(ASPI) Marshall Bouton said in an interview.
He also suggested the two leaders during their first meeting next week should focus on transforming bilateral economic relations.
Bouton, who is President Emeritus of The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, described economic relations between the two nations as the “weakest” as compared to the political and security pillars of bilateral cooperation.
Bouton had last month authored a comprehensive ASPI paper ‘The Trump Administration’s India Opportunity’, in which he called for the US administration to move decisively and engage Modi’s government to deepen cooperation and manage potential disputes.
Bouton said if Modi and Trump want to think big about US-India relations, they should think about transforming economic ties in the manner that strategic ties strengthened under the George Bush administration with the civil nuclear deal and through the climate agreement under Barack Obama.
In his paper, Bouton, a nationally known expert on India and Asia, had noted that total US trade with India now exceeds 100 billion dollars. Although Indian exports increased rapidly over the last 15 years, Indian goods exports to the United States accounted for only 2.1 per cent of total US goods imports in 2016.
The total US goods trade deficit with India ($24 billion) in 2016 accounted for less than 5 per cent of the total US trade deficit. “I am sure there will be some articulation on the Indian side of concern about protectionism on the part of the US and pressure on India to reduce its trade surplus with the US.
From the US side, (focus could be) on how to make the trade relationship more balanced,” he said.
