Letters:Positives for India

Mr Trump moves quickly was the positive thinking in the editorial

With reference to “Mr Trump moves quickly” (January 30), the “positive thinking” in the editorial is admirable. Most of us, including the media, have been only looking at the negatives of Donald Trump’s victory and how it is going to severely hurt our software industry and the general prosperity of entrepreneurs of Indian origin who have set up big businesses in the US. We have been ruing the possibility that the new administration will drastically cut the Indian quota for H-1B visas.
 
The editorial, perhaps for the first time, talks about all the advantages that India could derive under the new incumbent in the White House. The bigger picture indeed tilts the balance in favour of India. Trump’s crackdown on Muslims — especially those with questionable antecedents like the Islamic State sympathisers — and his approach towards keeping China’s rise in check should certainly help our own cause. It could lead to greater cooperation between India and the US not only in matters of internal security, counterterrorism and intelligence sharing but it could also give a big push to our bilateral trade and Indian exports to that country. The US is by far the world’s largest importer — its imports from China are humongous — and if only a part of this were to come from India, it would amount to whopping business for our exporters.
 
A “renewed focus on China’s rise” should also mean our increased strategic proximity to the US with wide-ranging benefits to our security from external threats. It may also pave the way for China’s realistic stand on issues of our border state and sharing of river waters as against the cavalier attitude they have adopted so far. The Trump administration may yet be “unburdened by specific policy proposals” but one can clearly see the man metamorphosing from a vituperative and crude campaigner to a rational — notwithstanding his America first tirade — president.
 

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