“Everyone has a plan until they are punched in the face.” So commented Mike Tyson, former world heavyweight boxing champion. This might well have been the essence of the message President Donald Trump passed on to the troop of European leaders that humiliated themselves in his Oval Office recently. In today’s global context, the one way to stay on plan is to stay out of the ring unless one has the muscle strength of Muhammad Ali or the economic clout of President Xi Jinping. That India has decided to do just that by not retaliating to the secondary tariffs (sanctions) that the US has levied on India for allegedly “financing” the Russian war machine, but limited its riposte to the verbal soundbite of US hypocrisy, is sensible. Retaliation would simply deepen the wedge driven into US-India relations and make it that much more difficult to build back once Trump has left office.
The boxing imagery aside, the question has to be asked: How do we address the Trumpian movement? For it is a movement. Whether this movement sustains post-Trump remains to be seen. But until then, one has to search for new, perhaps unfamiliar and unconventional tools to manage the predictable unpredictabilities.
A good beginning could be made by deliberating on how best to deal with the US ambassador-designate, a die-hard Trump loyalist, a newcomer to international diplomacy, on perhaps his first trip to India and with possibly only one brief. Interpret his master’s tweet for Indians. Not build back eroded relations.
What might be the tools to deploy? I do not know, but it will not be those our mandarins in the Ministry of External Affairs traditionally use in their exchange with ambassadorial envoys. Perhaps the best next step would be to figure out what might pique this man’s interest — art, maharajas and palaces; subtle (or maybe unabashed) flattery? And once found, to identify a cohort of people who could respond to his playbook. For once this ambassador has been “charmed”, we may have no need for the expensive lobbyists hired to make the Indian case to the White House — he has a straight line to the President.
I suspect I will be critiqued for flippancy, but I do not make these suggestions lightly. The conventional rules of the game have been overturned. This said, one must not lose sight of an unalterable reality. First principles and fundamentals will, in time, reassert themselves.
I have been in business for over four decades and, if asked, I would distil the core factors of business success to leadership, technology, innovation, scale, efficiency, talent and quality. And respect for the market. The latter cannot be bucked. Whether it be the robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th century, Andrew Carnegie, John D Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt or the captains of Indian Industry today, Mukesh Ambani, Sunil Mittal, Anand Mahindra, and the IT icons, they built their companies on the back of these first principles. In international affairs, too, there is an unerring fundamental principle for safeguarding national interest. The former UK Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, described it succinctly in a speech to the House of Commons in 1848. He said, “We (UK) have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”
Our response to US pressure to cut off supplies from Russia was Palmerstonian. We ignored it. Currently, the weighted average benefit of Russian crude oil vis-à-vis purchases from Saudi Arabia, the Gulf countries and Iraq is around $2.50/barrel. This benefit would be erased were prices to drop further. If and when that happens, Indian refiners would undoubtedly switch suppliers. Russia will (hopefully) understand, and this switch will not strain relations. President Trump may wish to take credit for the switch, and we should allow him this moment in the sun. There is nothing to be gained by reminding him that the market is a more powerful force than his daily tweets.
Comparably, the resumption of talks with China is also Palmerstonian. Our green energy agenda rests on competitive access to low-cost solar panels, wafers, modules, batteries and rare earths. China offers all of these commodities at the lowest prices. Sure, our two countries have different and potentially clashing world views and economic logic must never supersede national security, but within this frame, there is space for cooperation and collaboration. In the context of green energy, this would centre around the creation of resilient supply chains.
“Uncertainty is the only certainty” — this is a somewhat clichéd encapsulation of current conditions. It does, however, compel the question: How should India respond to these uncertainties? Three responses come to mind. One, the world of alternate facts does not change reality. Trump may hyphenate India with Pakistan. But that cannot alter the reality that Pakistan is a flailing economy and India is to be the fourth-largest economic power. Two, economic strength is a solid currency. The US threatened prohibitive tariffs against China, but when China retaliated by cutting exports of rare earths, the US not only lowered taxes but also permitted Nvidia to resume exports of its semiconductor chips to the country. India needs to leverage this period of uncertainty to clear the miasma of regulatory compliance and make it easier for international companies to reshore, friend shore or on-shore into/towards India. Finally, the US is and will remain a crucially important strategic partner. We must look over the horizon and display “strategic patience”.
The writer is Chairman and Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Social and Economic Progress. Views are personal
