US President Donald Trump’s recent tweet that targeted India on trade issues is rather strange. In his latest tweet, Trump stated that putting tariffs on American products by India is no longer acceptable. While trade issues are Trump’s pet peeves, normally (to the extent that anything Trump does is normal) one would expect that the President of the US would weigh in on the issue when it is topical. The fact that most often he aims his Twitter gun on trade issues with India apparently out of nowhere, suggests that someone close to him keeps reminding him, even instigating him, against India, and Trump is quick on the draw to fire a tweet. 

Predictably, there is disquiet, even outrage, in India over what many feel is unfair targeting of the country. Worse, it is a very shabby way to treat a country which is not only a strategic partner but is also one of the few countries where the public perception of the US is positive. Clearly, notwithstanding the fact that there are trade issues between the US and India which have been hanging fire for some time, for Trump to lump India with China on trade issues is bizarre. 

Unlike China, the US trade with India is quite balanced. Unless someone subscribes to the 18th century mercantilist view of international trade, the sort of imbalance that exists between the US and India is quite normal in this day and age of globalisation. If anything, the surpluses enjoyed by India have reduced in recent years because of a conscious effort to import more from the US. Over the last couple of years, apart from a spike in oil imports from the US, India has been ramping up imports of defence equipment. The strategic importance of sourcing energy and weapon systems from the US is in itself indicative of the trajectory of India-US relationship, which is now unnecessarily being brought under strain by public posturing, hectoring and targeting of India.

But in these Trumpian times, countries need to learn to deal with the eccentricities, excesses, even egregious references to them by Trump and his officials, more so if the larger relationship is worth preserving. In India’s case, the relationship with the US is one of the most important ones, strategically as well as economically. Both countries benefit from this relationship. In the US, there is a bipartisan consensus in Congress to nurture and strengthen ties with India. Whether it is the policy wonks, bureaucrats, intelligence and military officials, big business, academics and scholars, there is hardly anyone who doesn’t bat for deepening the relationship with India. Even so, a needlessly overbearing and arrogant approach by the US, and the inherent prickliness of folk in India–politicians, media, bureaucrats and ordinary people–could cause fissures that will last long after Trump is gone. And we still can’t be sure if Trump is there for another two years, or as is quite possible, another six.

As long as Trump is the President, there is no way that India can work around him. No matter how much everyone else in the US backs India, without the President backing the relationship, there isn’t much that anyone else can do. The thing is that the strains in the relationship are not all of Trump’s making. He might be making them worse with his unrestrained style of diplomacy, but there have been long-standing issues that have continued to be kicked down the road. They have reached a point where they need to be tackled. 

Trump’s problem with India has so far been only on the economic front. India too has been somewhat remiss in not engaging with the Americans to sort out some of these issues. There has been a tendency to delay things and hope that they will sort themselves out. But that clearly is not happening. This means that instead of sleep-walking into a trade war with the US with retaliatory tariffs and display of petulance, India needs to double-down on engaging with the Trump administration and sorting out things on the trade front.   

Every US President has his pet fetishes. Trade is Trump’s fetish and India needs to deal with it by taking a long term view. So far, India has behaved quite maturely and with restraint. But recent retaliatory measures have only muddied the waters. It is in India’s interest to step back and avoid escalating the trade spat because this will eventually play into the pressures that are developing on the strategic front. Even as India has deepened its strategic relationship with the US, it has scrupulously avoided getting into a formal alliance arrangement. This strategy opened diplomatic space for India to play a balancing game between the US and China, and benefit from it. But things are coming to a pass where India might have to start choosing sides, or else be consigned to the sidelines of the strategic alignments that are taking place in the region. At the very least, India will have to play the balancing game at a much higher level than at present. 

The bottom line is that the India-US relationship is far too valuable to be frittered away through pig-headedness on eminently resolvable trade issues. Both the US and India have a lot more to lose if the relationship frays than they will if they work out a deal involving compromise and give-and-take.