On whether Trump is the biggest mascot of deglobalisation

Yes, that’s the worry that it is a signal. The US has this very powerful symbolic effect around the world. You can sense that everywhere, people saying, well, if the Americans are doing it (raising tariffs) then (so can we). Now, the sad thing is that the United States can do this because 80 per cent of the US market is a domestic market. But for India, the path to growth is going to be to integrate with the global economy. That is how China grew.

Audience at the event.

On Trump appealing to the working class

Trump appeals to them because he doesn’t tell them that ‘I am one of you’. He tells them, ‘I will represent you. I get you’. Trump is really a working-class person’s idea of what a rich person should be. It’s the idea, it’s the razzle-dazzle of what it would be like and I think it comes to him authentically.

On how Trump’s talk to impose tariffs will play out in India

There is a golden opportunity here for India. Trump has set 10 per cent tariffs across the board and 60 per cent on China. My guess is that the part he really means is, don’t worry about the numbers, China will be particularly hit hard by tariffs, but everybody else will face them.

This is a kind of opening salvo. India could try to negotiate a bilateral trade deal with Trump. And it’s a golden opportunity because you can create a corridor for US-India trade, and if India has to, as a result, reduce some of its tariffs, this is very good for the Indian economy. India is the most protectionist large economy in the world. Most of the protectionism India has in place is entirely because large Indian companies, conglomerates, do not want competition… So if the Trump threat forces India to open up some of its markets and in return it gets some greater access to US technology that it has not had so far, that could be a very important win for India Trump likes making these deals. I think the age of multilateral trade is over. What you’re going to have are these bilateral trade deals and India could be positioned to do a good one.

Vikram Mehta, Chairman and Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) (left) in conversation with Fareed Zakaria

On India’s multi-aligned foreign policy

Indians have been trying to play this game of multi-aligned foreign policy. India is in the catbird seat and it does have the ability to align itself or do business with whomever it wants without incurring the kind of punishments that would usually come with that. So they can deal with the Russians in the military areas but the Americans won’t admonish them or punish them. The Americans have been very understanding of India’s foreign policy. My own view has always been that this is a mistake. India is the world’s largest democracy. It is a country deeply defined by its pluralism, by its values. And from a strategic and political and moral point of view, it will gain much more for itself by aligning itself firmly with the forces of democracy and liberalism and openness because the only way India is really going to grow economically is if it has a very close relationship with the most advanced centres of economics and technology in the world. And those are in the West.

So from a completely self-interest point of view, India should stop playing footsie with everyone. And instead say proudly and loudly that we are a democracy, we are part of an open world, we want a world of openness and stability.

On whether China is the strategic glue for India-US relationship

Yes, to a certain extent, China is the strategic glue, but there is also a value-based glue that India and America share. India is the most pro-American country in the world. If you look at opinion polls, 75 per cent of Indians have a favourable impression of America. That’s higher now than even Israel and Poland, which were the other two. Every Indian is trying to get a visa to go to an American college; there’s nobody lining up to go to Beijing and Moscow.

On whether India is Trump-proof

Trump has always had a favourable attitude towards India. He’s also, by the way, always had a favourable attitude towards the BJP and Modi. So they are in a good position at multiple levels. He will press them on trade, but as I said, there’s a trade deal to be had.

Journalist, author and political commentator Fareed Zakaria

QUICK QUESTIONS

📌 If you get a call from Trump to join his cabinet, would you accept it?

No. He embodies a certain set of values that I wouldn’t want my son to grow up emulating and I would find it very hard to justify being willing to do that.

📌 Will NATO survive four years?

Yes.

📌 On a scale of 1 to 10, define the relevance of the UN in 2024.

Can I go negative on the scale?

📌 Who’s more powerful today, Elon Musk or Bill Gates?

Elon Musk. He may be the most powerful private individual in American history.

📌 You did your PhD from Harvard under Professor Samuel Huntington. If you were to do a PhD today, what would the subject be?

The logical answer should be artificial intelligence.

📌 Which country do you bet on to win the chip wars, if there is one winner?

The US, without any question.

📌 What’s the number one real fear of a Trump presidency and the number one one imagined fear of a Trump presidency?

My No 1 fear is the broader withdrawal from the world and a lack of the turning in of the generosity of America towards the world. The No 1 imagined fear, I think, is the dictatorship idea. Words like dictator and fascist are thrown around much too loosely.

📌 How will Trump deal with the following issues and how should Trump deal with these issues?

The US dollar

Trump will try to do the impossible, which is to have tariffs, to spend a lot of money, to borrow a lot of money and still have the dollar go down because he likes the idea of the US being competitive. It’s impossible to do those. You should deal with it… The value of the dollar is a price. Whether it goes up or down is largely irrelevant… the US President should not worry about that.

Crypto

I think he should have a more benign attitude towards it, with the exception of cracking down on crime. And I suspect that he will. I think that this is an area where the Democrats, again, made a mistake. Why did they come out so strongly against crypto?

Iran

He will try to exert more pressure, which is, I think, basically the wrong approach. We should maintain a certain amount of that pressure but we have to have a serious strategy towards the country.

Israel and Hamas

I would distinguish between what Israel is doing in the north, in Lebanon and with Iran, where I think it’s re-establishing deterrence in a very important way. In occupied territories, he should work towards a two-state solution, which he will absolutely not do.

Saudi Arabia

I think he should tell the Saudis, let’s make a deal with the Israelis, but let’s get the Palestinians a pathway to statehood. I think he will try to make a deal with the Israelis without the pathway.

Taiwan

I think he’ll follow the Biden policy, which has been very consistent. Broadly speaking, American policy has been the same on Taiwan, which is do everything you can to deter the Chinese from attacking and do everything you can to deter the Taiwanese from declaring independence, because that would trigger a Chinese attack.

If Jaishankar were to come to you for advice on how India should deal with the following countries, what would you say?

Canada

Try to resolve it. It seems to me that there’s a very narrow issue on which there is this disagreement. But diplomacy is all about finding a way to compartmentalise that so it doesn’t spill over into the broader relationship.

Iran

Continue to have relations with Iran. I think it’s in India’s interest not to isolate itself, and it needs the oil.

Russia

I would continue to have relations with Russia, but I would strategically reorient America, India’s defence and military posture away from Russian equipment, Russian training, Russian security architecture.

Pakistan

I would love to see an Indo-Pakistani reconciliation, more trade, travel between the two countries. India is the much more powerful country. It has the capacity to try to search for some kind of generous reconciliation here.

Bangladesh

I think that the way that India should handle Bangladesh is basically to try to be less involved in Bangladesh.

Mike Hankey, Consul General, US Consulate General (left) with wife Melissa Cline

In Trump 2.0,

📌 What will happen to American Big Tech?

By and large, American Big Tech will continue to do fine. It will face some real challenges on the issue of whether or not social media is in fact a publisher of content rather than simply a platform.

📌 What will happen to American Big Pharma?

You have Robert Kennedy who is a completely unique new phenomenon. So I would be hesitant to predict. By and large, the scientific establishment works on the basis of facts, research and I would hope that you would not replace that with some kind of random assertions about causation, which are really all just about correlation.

📌 What will happen to Chinese EV companies?

Right now there is already a 29 per cent tariff on it. So I suspect that unless Chinese EV companies start selling a lot into the US, they won’t raise the tariffs. But if they do, he’ll raise the tariffs.

📌 What happens to the world’s fight on climate crisis?

Well, they’ll have to fight without America! I’m joking, actually, because the American economy is already decarbonising on very broad grounds. The great challenge for climate change, honestly, is China, India and Indonesia.

📌l How many years or months before we see these headlines actually appear?

Zelensky-Putin declare ceasefire

Possible within six months.

Modi, Xi Jinping reach an agreement on border.

The Chinese have solved 15 of the 16 border disputes they have with their neighbours. This is the only border dispute they have not solved. And I think it’s because it involves, in their conception, greater Tibet. I think it’s probably less likely, not in the next year.

Israel and Iran sit down for peace talks

No chance.

Israel accepts a two-state solution

Five per cent chance.

📌 You get the following guests on GPS. What’s the most important question you’d ask each one of them?

Narendra Modi

I would ask him what is the best way to strengthen and let flourish India’s deeply pluralistic nature.

Rahul Gandhi

Is there a way for the Congress to go back to being a genuine grassroots organisation the way it was before internal party elections were suspended?

Kamala Harris

Why didn’t you find a way to let people see the authentic you? Because politics has changed. People want authenticity. They don’t care about 30-second commercials, good lighting, good audio, good video. They want to see the real you.

Joe Biden

Why in God’s name did you not fulfill the implicit promise you made to the American people? Which was that you would be a one-term president and you would step down and let there be an open democratic primary, which would have allowed for the strongest democratic candidate to emerge.

Benjamin Netanyahu

Why don’t you want to go down in history as the hawk who was able to secure Israel’s future by taking the one albatross that it has off its neck and allow for a Palestinian state?

Putin

Are you really the richest man in the world, as I think Elon Musk once said?

Xi Jinping

I think the most interesting question for Xi Jinping is, do you believe it is possible for China to have an open, dynamic, bottom-up, individually based economy and a Leninist political system at the same time?

AUDIENCE QUESTIONS

Madhur Bajaj

Madhur Bajaj
Non-Executive Director, Bajaj Auto Ltd

The Supreme Court gave immunity to the President of America. Now there are talks of that being unconstitutional. Do you think there is a chance of him being disqualified?

No, there’s zero chance of that. One of the justices, who was in minority, is saying that she thinks that it was an incorrect ruling. But the majority has already ruled and that ruling will hold. The ruling said that the president has broad immunity in most areas; not every area. I don’t agree with the ruling, it was too broad, but it was trying to cover the idea that if he orders an airstrike, and American civilians die, can he be taken to task for murder?

Sunil Lalvani

Sunil Lalvani
Vice President, Enterprise Sales and Business Development, Zoho Corporation

For the first time in the last 36 years, the Washington Post didn’t endorse or refrain from endorsing a presidential candidate. Given our landscape, what should publications do to restore confidence on voting rights?

People often talk about how there’s been a collapse of trust. It’s a collapse of trust in established institutions. But there’s a huge rise of trust in a podcaster named Huberman or a Robert Kennedy. It’s a shift of trust from an institution to an individual. People want greater transparency. And institutions come across as inauthentic.

Madhur Bajaj

Milap Shah
Founder & Executive Chairman, Nexsales Corp, USA

We’re really scared about what arbitrary Trump decision-making and tariffs can do. Do we take a guarded approach? Does the court still have a role?

You can have differing judicial interpretations, but you don’t slavishly just do what one side or the other wants. It’s the great worry about democracy because it’s not just the third stool, but it’s the final stool. India is going to be fine, because the US has a special relationship with India, not just at the governmental level but because of China. And because businesses love India, you’ll be fine. I don’t know whether everywhere else will be fine.

Dharmil Bodani

Dharmil Bodani
Chairman & Managing Director, Oriental Aromatics Ltd

Now that Trump has won, how do you view your role going forward? Will you continue to be a strong critic of Trump?

I have a pretty broad following that’s bipartisan. I don’t start out from the position that everything Trump does is bad. One tries to evaluate every policy on its own terms. I’ll continue to do that. Some of the things he said, rhetorically, I’ve worried about; some I support. But I’m not going to support because he won the popular vote in the US by 1.5 per cent. Truth is not a popularity contest. There are independent criteria by which you measure the virtue of public policy, and your morality, other than by a popularity contest.

Radha Goenka

Radha Goenka
Director, RPG Foundation

If Biden hadn’t resigned, do you think the election result would have been different?

This is the first time in 120 years that every incumbent party in the advanced world, in the rich countries, lost by huge margins. The conservatives lost in Britain. Macron’s party got destroyed (in France). So did the Dutch. The Japanese LDP lost. Even Modi experienced an incumbent penalty. So the chance for Democrats was slimmer than people realise, but given how close the election was, I do think that if you’d had a different Democrat, you had a chance. The election is about insiders versus outsiders. If the Democrats had nominated somebody who could plausibly say, I’m an outsider, things could have been different. As for Biden, he would have lost in a landslide.

Vandana Shah

Vandana Shah
Lawyer and CEO, DivorceKart

What happens if Roe versus Wade is overturned? Will the likes of Gloria Steinem not have voices anymore?

Kamala Harris made a bet that the two issues that would matter to the American people were democracy and Dobbs, Dobbs being the ruling that overturned Roe vs Wade. It turned out not to be true. There are two possible reasons. One was that people felt it’s hard to make the case that he would be a dictator. Yes, he went kicking and screaming, but he did leave. And on Dobbs, Trump also played the abortion issue very cleverly by taking it off the agenda. Women are intelligent. In state elections, they all voted pro-choice. But in this case, maybe they were not as motivated because they realised it doesn’t change very much.