DNA Edit: Protectionist policy - Trump government is wary of highly qualified Indians

The Donald Trump administration is caught in a cleft stick. America lacks necessary talent for highly skilled jobs and yet the President has made it extremely difficult for US firms to hire specialised labour from India.

The tightening of H-1B visa regulations in sync with Trump’s ‘Buy American-Hire American’ protectionist policy is likely to backfire because not everybody shares the President’s idea of patriotism — not at the cost of suffering financial losses.

Only the crème de la crème among professionals — those proficient in science, technology, engineering and mathematics — travel to the US under this visa programme. So, it’s a bit strange that US Consul General in Mumbai, Edgard Kagan, said his country encourages and welcomes ‘qualified Indians’ when it is doing exactly the opposite — attempting to shoo away the best brains out of the country.

One needs to underscore the fact that an overwhelming majority of H-1B visa applicants are Indians. Many of those who make it to the US shores go on to distinguish themselves in their respective fields. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that today Indians are familiar faces in the Silicon Valley with Pichai Sundararajan, the Indian American CEO of Google, and Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, hailed as brilliant success stories.

The immigrants’ contribution to America’s growth story — in fact, they fuelled the great American dream — cannot be overstated. But with Trump at the helm, these gains will soon be reversed. What America is practicing is the worst form of hypocrisy: The US wants Indian students to study in its institutions and welcomes Indian investments because those make sound financial sense. But it wouldn’t want deserving Indians to work in the country since that would deprive Americans of their livelihood.

At the heart of globalisation is the concept of free movement of goods and labour. Globalisation abhors barriers because an integrated world mustn’t create obstacles for ‘narrow, selfish gains’. This arrangement was fine for the US as long as it worked to its advantage. But with the tables turning and the American economy countering global headwinds, Trump and his ilk are queering a level-playing field.

Trump has come to power on the promise of making America great again. Till now, all he has been able to do is isolate the US from the rest of the world. At every juncture — his refusal to be part of the climate deal, the trade wars with China, quibbles with NATO allies — America’s alienation has grown more intense. Trump should realise that since America has more adversaries than allies, it cannot afford to lose India’s friendship.

It is one thing to play to the gallery at home, and quite another when it comes to bilateral relations. Already India-US relationship is going through a rough patch over New Delhi’s friendship with Tehran. The US approach alternates between carrots and stick and the entire mechanism is geared towards deriving maximum gains from this relationship. New Delhi needs to be more assertive in its dealings with Washington to protect its own interests.