india

Updated: Feb 22, 2020 18:47 IST

US President Donald Trump will raise concerns over rising trade barriers and tariffs during his India visit starting Monday, said senior Trump administration officials, who went on to put the blame for the widely anticipated failure of the announcement of a deal “wholly” on India. He will also call for equal treatment of religious minorities and urge India and Pakistan to resolve their differences bilaterally.

“Whether or not there will be an announcement on a trade package is, really, wholly dependent upon what the Indians are prepared to do,” said one of the officials who previewed the president’s visit for reporters. The official sought to blame the failure of the two sides to come to an agreement on a spate of recent announcements by the Indian government that made “discussions a bit more difficult”.

The official took aim specifically at Make in India, one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet programmes, “Recent announcements on Make in India have made the protectionism concerns in India even greater,” the official said,, holding it responsible for the failure of the trade talks.

Prospects of a trade deal being announced during the American president’s two-day visit have dimmed considerably in recent time despite Trump’s efforts to talk it up in public rallies and remarks. He has spoken of “big deal” a “tremendous deal” that could be announced now or perhaps after the November elections, which appears more likely given the long list of concerns the United States wants India to address.

The United States has sought more access to Indian markets in dairy and poultry, removal of medical devices from price control regimes and, as the American official argued, decrease trade barriers and tariffs, which have been rising, citing recent tariffs on certain imports from the United States and continued “important divergences on e-commerce and digital trade”.

President Trump begins his India visit in Ahmedabad, where he lands Monday with first lady Melania Trump, eldest daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump, son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner. Cabinet members accompanying him will be Wilbur Ross and Dan Brouillette and other officials will include Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and the president’s controversial immigration hawk Stephen Miller.

The president will address a public rally at Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad with Prime Minister Modi. Trump will be accorded a ceremonial welcome the next day and he is then scheduled to hold delegation-level meetings with the Indian leader. The day will be capped by a state dinner at the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the Americans will leave for home the same night.

Trade has been one of the chief irritants in the relationship and it has defied resolution for years, across administrations. Trump has sought to address it more aggressively than his predecessors. The United States terminated India’s eligibility for a preferential trade system called the Generalized System of Preferences, last summer for not granting US more access to its markets.

Those concerns remain, said one of the officials, adding, “It was really the failure of the Indian government to provide equitable and reasonable access to its markets in numerous sectors.”. The list of US complaints has since grown, according to the officials, with new additions coming in recent weeks. And President Trump will bring them up with Prime Minister Modi.

The American leader will also bring up the issue of religious freedom. “President Trump will talk about our shared tradition of democracy and religious freedom both in his public remarks and then certainly in private,” one of the official said in response to a question if the president will address issues related to the Citizenship Amendment Act that grants Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim refugees from neighboring states refugees and the National Citizenship Register.

“He will raise these issues, particularly the religious freedom issue, which is extremely important to this administration,” the official added.

This will not be the first time for an American president to raise the issue of religious freedom on an India visit. “India will succeed so long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious faith -- so long as it’s not splintered along any lines -- and is unified as one nation,” President Barack Obama said in January 2015, during his second visit to India, when he had also become the first American president to attend the Republic Day parade as chief guest.

President Trump, who is known to abandon the scripted speech in public remarks, will also be closely observed on a key sensitive issue for India, Kashmir. “What you’ll hear from the President is very much encouraging a reduction in tensions between India and Pakistan, encouraging the two countries to engage in bilateral dialogue with each other to resolve their differences,” the official said in response to a question.

That’s the standard US position, held across administrations, but President Trump had sought to insert himself into the dispute with repeated offers to mediate, possibly to appease Pakistan, whose help he has courted in recent months to end the US war in Afghanistan by negotiating a peace deal with the Taliban, who were created, run and managed by Pakistan’s ISI.

“We continue to believe a core foundation of any successful dialogue between the two is based on continued momentum in Pakistan’s efforts to crack down on terrorists and extremists on its territory,” said one of the officials, acknowledging and affirming Pakistan’s support of terrorism as a main obstacle to peace in the region.