Last month, Donald Trump had asserted that India is “doing well”, but now he proposes to detract from that wellness. Harking back to a statement of last November, when he accused India and China of taking advantage of America, he has sworn to bring back jobs that rightfully belong to Americans but have irresponsibly wandered off to Bangalore.
In reality, Silicon Valley and a few other industries sought out technical talent from India as a cut-throat business strategy in the 1990s. The media coined terms for the phenomenon — body-hopping and outsourcing — to present old colonial strategies as new. Two decades later, the tide had turned and President Barack Obama coined the counter-term: He complained of the cream of American jobs being “Bangalored”. Now, Trump is trying to trump the Democrats by committing to bring ‘em back alive. If the same argument were used with respect to industry and capital, there would have been loud protests about protectionism and the interests of stockholders and consumers. But when it comes to jobs, nationalism trumps arguments concerning prices and profitability.
