JOIN USAlthough successive US Presidents have sought to build strong ties with India and that goal enjoys bipartisan support in Washington, President-elect Joe Biden’s administration is expected to cast special attention on India-US relations, some of it to the liking of the Modi government, some of it not to its liking.
Biden comes to the presidency with long-term foreign policy experience and credentials as a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as Barack Obama’s Vice President. With Biden at the helm, India should expect to gain on two issues: visas for Indian high-tech workers and ties with Iran.
Biden is expected to roll back Donald Trump’s restrictive H-1B visa policy, a move that will be cheered not just by the Indian IT outsourcing industry but also by Silicon Valley, which Vice President-elect Kamala Harris represented. Biden has also indicated that he would return the US to the nuclear deal with Iran and lift sanctions on Tehran. That would be a relief for New Delhi. Although Indian projects in Iran were largely exempted from US sanctions, India had to stop oil imports from Iran. It had to approach investment in Iran with trepidation. That could change with Biden at the helm.
The Modi government could, however, face some challenges in dealing with the US under Biden. Even if Biden sets aside Modi’s excessive embrace of Donald Trump that bordered on an endorsement for the latter in his re-election bid, the Modi government will still have to reckon with a clash of values with Biden and Harris.
These could be over its record on treatment of minorities and human rights in general, and on specific issues such as the Citizenship Amendment Act and Kashmir. Biden is not only interested in these issues, unlike Trump, but also knows what buttons to push as his administration engages with Delhi on a host of issues, from strategic ties to trade talks.
But the most important issue in India-US relations will remain China. There is an expectation that Biden would seek to restore normalcy with China, after the trade war and rising strategic tensions under Trump which was seen to be pushing the US closer to India.
It is unlikely that Biden will be able to change the nature of the relationship with China much, now that the latter has made it clear it is in the race for global supremacy. This is especially so, given the acutely divided polity in the US. Indeed, this is to India’s advantage as about the only global issue onwhich Democrats and Republicans agree is on ties with India. It will be up to New Delhi to ensure that it stays this way.