Can Make in India' & America First' merge?

Donald Trump’s victory upended pollsters and shocked the global community anxiously awaiting the outcome of an extremely raucous and personalised election. The leaders of America’s Republican Party had surmised, after losing to President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, that to win in an ethnically diversifying country they would have to broaden their base. Mr Trump, however, did just the opposite by consolidating white majority support by an unabashedly anti-minority and bigoted campaign. The Economist magazine, which had denounced Mr Trump prior to the election, writes that he has “contempt for conservative orthodoxy” and harbours a dystopian vision, bigotry and anti-intellectualism. It concludes that if he has not rewritten the rules of electioneering, he has certainly flouted most of them. His new electoral alliance, transcending traditional party lines, dredges economic fears and racial anxiety of the white majority, that will shrink by 2050 from 61.8 per cent of the population today to 46.6 per cent, if current immigration policies persist. In his victory speech, he called them “the forgotten men and women”.

Though the last-minute intervention by the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation broke Hillary Clinton’s momentum and distracted attention away from Mr Trump’s sex tapes, she really lost as she did not represent the change which most people sought. His win mirrors a global trend towards the rise of chauvinistic leaders, often highly divisive but certainly autocratic, who rally their nations using past hurts or contemporary angst. Those falling into this category would include Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, China’s Xi Jinping and India’s Narendra Modi. Waiting in the wings are Trump clones like Marine Le Pen, leader of the xenophobic National Front in France, often dubbed Trump Lite. Mr Trump’s apparent threat to the existing geo-economic order, stems from his economic and foreign policy pronouncements in the campaign, a lot even contemptuous of the traditional Republican Party platform. For instance, he condemns all trade agreements, including the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), that integrated the Mexican and Canadian economies with that of the US.

On foreign policy, he advocates a retreat from US “exceptionalism” — a bedrock of the US worldview as the deemed custodian of liberty and freedom worldwide. Mr Trump instead preaches “America First” and an isolationist stance. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in her congratulatory message, conditioned partnership on respect for human dignity, racial equality and tolerance. A similar message went from the European Union. These are surprisingly blunt signals to the putative leader of the Western alliance. From the fog of electioneering some elements of his putative foreign and domestic policies are emerging. In his victory speech he was moderation incarnate, advocating partnership and not confrontation with nations “willing to get along with us”. Having campaigned against Nafta he would have to at least review if not discard it. The Mexican peso has plunged in anticipation and Canada, which sends three-quarters of its exports to the US, is understandably nervous.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which was to tie the US to 11 partners in the Asia-Pacific region and provide geo-strategic underpinning to containing China, is now in limbo. Japan’s Lower House had already approved the TPP. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is rushing to engage Mr Trump in the US even before his inauguration to seek clarity about all elements of the US-Japan alliance. Mr Trump’s praise of President Vladimir Putin and signal to Nato allies that to obtain US protection they must commit greater resources increases uncertainty in Europe, already facing universally rising anti-establishment feelings, of which Brexit was a signal. His iconoclastic suggestion, which he may now drop, that Japan and the Republic of Korea could acquire nuclear weapons if they need for self-protection to offset reduced US commitment may undermine the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, not entirely an unwelcome prospect from India’s perspective.

The Trump approach to the Islamic world is also laden with paradoxes. He has scoffed at Sunni Gulf sheikhdoms and yet also wants to undo the nuclear deal with Iran. At the same time he wants ISIS obliterated, though it seems extremely unlikely that he would be prepared to commit troops for this. He is unlikely to press Israel as Mr Obama did on illegal settlements. But President Obama engaged Iran realising that the US could not counter ISIS without committing troops in West Asia unless the Russia-Iran axis, supplemented by US-boosted Iraqi and Kurdish forces operating under US air cover, was unshackled in northern Syria-Iraq. A group called Hindu Americans for Trump had invited him to a New Jersey temple in a town largely inhabited by Gujarati-origin Indians. Was it PM Narendra Modi’s outreach to Mr Trump using the RSS and Gujarati links? If so, it is a welcome move.

India will have to watch carefully Mr Trump’s policy towards East Asia, including China, Europe, including Russia, and West Asia, mainly Iran. India and Pakistan would perhaps figure lower on his initial list of priorities. On trade and economics, India must monitor his policy on visas, taxing of outsourcing firms and other protectionist steps that may present both challenges and opportunities. Trump Inc has real estate links in Mumbai and Pune. He is also at heart a transactional businessman whom India can engage as he carries little baggage of Cold War links to Pakistan. Mr Modi must find the first opportunity to meet him to develop chemistry and sell a shared vision of 21st century Asia. India-US ties are flourishing but still lack economic and technological depth. Some unfinished business still lingers — such as India’s permanent membership of the UN Security Council, Nuclear Suppliers Group and enhanced defence links. Can Mr Modi’s “Make in India” be meshed with Mr Trump’s “America First” to craft, what President Obama once called, the defining partnership of the 21st century? History beckons both.