India to join China, Russia to slam US protectionism

Upset over the United States' recent decision to strip it of a special trade status, India is now set to join China and Russia to raise the pitch against American President Donald Trump's protectionist policies.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will join Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as the leaders of the other member-nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Bishkek on June 13 and 14 to jointly call for a “new type” of multilateral trading system based on rules.

The SCO leaders are likely to hold a discussion on the continuing trade war between the US and China and its impact on the global economy. China has been reaching out to Russia and India as well as other nations in Central Asia and South Asia to drum up support against protectionist trade policies of the US.

New Delhi is also upset over Trump Administration's announcement on May 31 that it was ending a special trade privilege granted to India in 1976 for exporting goods to the US duty-free.

India's exports to the US under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) were worth $ 5.6 billion in 2017.

New Delhi is also contemplating imposing a retaliatory tariff on US exports to India.

Sources in New Delhi told the DH that Prime Minister would join Russian and Chinese Presidents as well as other SCO leaders to call for “joint resistance to any manifestations of unilateral protectionism and active cooperation with a view to forming a global economy of a new type and strengthening the multilateral trade system that is inclusive, transparent, non-discriminatory and based on rules”.

The US has been complaining about the imbalance in its trade with India.

During his visit to New Delhi early last month, American Secretary of State Wilbur Ross pointed out that the US was India's largest export market and accounted for about 20% of its total export. Yet, he added, India was only the 13th largest export market of the US, “due to overly restrictive market access barriers”.

The Trump Administration has been nudging New Delhi to lower the barriers to make it easier for US companies to do business in India.

In November 2018, Modi joined other leaders of the BRICS – a bloc comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – to oppose the US move to paralyze the dispute settlement mechanism of the World Trade Organization.

Of late, the US has been accusing the WTO of treating it unfairly.

It also threatened to withdraw the US from the organization, which was established to set rules for international trade and resolve commercial disputes among the countries.

Trump's administration has also been blocking new appointments to the WTO Appellate Body, thus putting the dispute settlement mechanism of the organization in jeopardy.