DNA Edit: Motormouth Trump

Let us, for a moment, ignore the fact that a man’s behaviour, let alone, the behaviour of the US President towards the PM of India, should never be as shorn of gravitas as Donald Trump’s conduct has been. Time and again, President Trump has shown — either by his loose cannon enunciations or his irresponsible tweets — that his comportment lacks when measured against the great men who have chaired the seat of the US President.

When US President Trump referred rather sassily to PM Modi as a ‘fantastic man...beautiful man’, he violated sacrosanct rules of business between nations. The most primary of which is that there must be a clear line drawn between the person of the head of the state and the position of the head of the state. President Trump ideally ought to have raised this issue without making a mention of PM Modi. If in the exercise of his prerogative, he was intent on mentioning India’s PM, then he should have displayed restraint and civility and observed the niceties of international diplomacy, instead of trampling them in his trademark style.

Anyhow, President Trump’s comment raking up the high import duty on imported motorcycles, in this case Harley Davidson, is an opportune moment to spotlight the hypocritical stance of the US administration. Even before Trump came to power, he had been campaigning about ‘making America great again’ agenda. Part of his poll promise was the commitment that the US will progressively close its doors on migrant labourers and foreign employees, retaining jobs for the natives. In January this year, Trump pressed tariffs on washing machines and solar panels, even as he is contemplating slapping import tariffs on foreign-made steel. Evidently, it is the President who is rocking the boat on global trade status-quo. If he chooses to close the US borders to foreign products, it is only natural that other countries will also respond in the same protectionist vein.

However, this is not to say that India is opting for the same protectionist measures à la Trump. In January, PM Modi mounted a spirited defence of globalisation stressing on how almost the entire spectrum of the Indian economy had been rendered open to Foreign Direct Investment. India, true to PM Modi’s word, is removing the red tape and laying out the red carpet. Consider the fact that close to 1,400 archaic laws that stood in the way of streamlined and expedited business have been abolished. FDI norms in many a domain are being successively eased. American firms, including Harley Davidson, are free to target the Indian consumer by setting up shop in India.

In this venture, they will be enthusiastically welcomed by the government under the ‘Make in India’ initiative. It is now for the American firms to decide if they want to commit a part of their revenue towards building a base in India. If they do decide to enter India, they would join the ranks of hundreds of MNCs who have managed to carve out a niche for themselves in the domestic market. In the process, jobs would be created for India’s over-flooded workforce and customers will have access to better products and services at competitive rates. It is a clear win-win. Pity, America does not see it so.