Trump or Biden, India's love for US endures

According to a recent survey, Indians' average rating of the US on a host of factors was the highest, surpassing even the US citizens'

The US of A may have bumbled from one crisis to the next in the last four years under Donald Trump, but it seems the president’s shenanigans have had little or no effect on educated and affluent Indians’ love for the world’s biggest economy.

In a multi-country global survey released last month by French research group Ipsos, a sizeable 40 per cent of the 20,000-odd respondents from across 29 countries rated the United States’ (US’) performance on a host of factors as “below average”, with just 27 per cent rating it “above average”. Only on five of the 13 performance areas tracked by the survey did the US score a net positive (percentage “above average” minus “below average” (See table: How the United States is seen). On most other counts, like respect for its citizens, human rights,  strength of its democracy and institutions and being a force for good across the world, it got a big thumbs down on a net basis.

Only a dozen countries rated it net positive, and no surprises that it included all-weather friends like Japan (+2), South Korea (+12), Saudi Arabia (+12) and Israel (+27). But Indians rated it, unbelievably, at +34, highest in the world, even better than the Americans themselves did (+22)!

On the other end of the spectrum, most European countries are very negative on America, leading with the Netherlands (-42), Germany (-37), France (-29) and Great Britain (-22). Even its neighbours and some allies rate it poorly—Canada (-29), Mexico (-1) and Australia (-19). China’s score (-11) is understandable, what with the Sino-US trade and geopolitical one-upmanship at its worst since relations normalised in the 1970s. And Mr Trump’s Islamophobia is making countries like Malaysia (-20) and Turkey (-15) more wary of the hegemon.

Another recent global survey by Pew Research Centre also shows America’s reputation at an over two-decade low amongst the same set of countries (13-nation; India was not covered) like the Ipsos one. But a majority, almost two-thirds of Indian respondents of another Pew survey released late last year said they see US influence on India’s economy and economic policies as a force of good.

That American global image has been dented big time is unquestionable. Mr Trump’s shortsighted policies have alienated and rattled all — from NATO allies, special partners like the United Kingdom to traditional competitors like China — evident in the overwhelming negative score that it draws from people of such countries in most surveys. Why then is India an outlier?

Of late, India’s foreign and security policies pivoting more decisively towards the US, what with a dangerous face-off continuing with a belligerent China at our borders, may have just given a fillip to America’s enduring image of a strong country and economy that rich Indians look up to. But strategic or geopolitical reasons alone cannot explain the strong traction that the US continues to hold amongst well-heeled Indians. Nor can growing bilateral trade, at over $160 billion last fiscal. These are all necessary, but not sufficient conditions for America’s stock to continue to float high with most Indians.

It could be because of multiple reasons. For one, for whatever Mr Trump may have said or done on trade and visa issues, his actions in reality have not had an impact on education, job and emigration dreams of millions of middle-class Indians, who still see settling down in America as a way out to improve their or their progeny’s lot in life. Indians’ urge to migrate to rich countries, like the 37-country block Organisation of Economic Cooperation that counts the US, UK, Canada and Australia as members remains very strong, growing 10 per cent in the last reported numbers for year-ending December 2018, even as migrants from China dropped a percentage. After all, almost two-thirds of the four million-odd Indian Americans entered the US only in the last two decades and the country still remains the number one choice for Indians looking to head out.

True that Indian students enrolling in US colleges have come done this year, but that has more to do with how the coronavirus has laid campuses bare across the world then any real loss of appetite to follow the American Dream. And give or take a few cases of families disrupted due to Mr Trump’s abrupt coronavirus-related travel bans, one has not witnessed hordes of techies descending back to Indian shores yet. The Indian diaspora remains strong, stable and rooted in the US, with both presidential candidates serenading it.

Two, and more worryingly, is it that from our vantage in India, for whatever the US and/or Mr Trump is damned for — bringing down standards of public life, policy, social narrative and democratic instituti­ons — they remain admirably high and therefore still aspirational for us, come Mr Trump or Joe Biden?