The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: How US-India Tension Fuels Russia and China

Starting point is 00:00:00 At Desjardin, we speak business. We speak equipment modernization. We're fluent in data digitization and expansion into foreign markets. And we can talk all day about streamlining manufacturing processes. Because at Desjardin business, we speak the same language you do. Business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us. And contact Desjardin today.

Starting point is 00:00:25 We'd love to talk. Business. We're currently in a little rough patch with India, Narendra Modi, who's been the prime minister for 11 years, a very powerful figure within India and a player on the national scene. He's a center-right politician, if not on a bashedly right wing. And Trump sees India as a large English-speaking counterweight to China. Indian Americans are now numbering five or six million people. We've opened the borders wide open to people immigrating from India. They come with capital and skills, and they're a very influential minority, very successful in the minority in the United States, and we welcome them with open arms.

Starting point is 00:01:07 So you would think that the Modi-Trump Indian-American relationship would be great, but it's not. And why isn't it? Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hansson for the Daily Signal. We're currently in a little rough patch with India, Narendra Modi. who's been the prime minister for 11 years, a very powerful figure within India and a player on the national scene, he's a center-right politician, if not on a bashedly right wing. So he would be a natural partner for the United States under Trump. And they did have very close relations in the first term. And Trump sees India as a large English-speaking counterweight to China. It's got 1.4 billion people.

Starting point is 00:02:03 China's a little bit bigger, but China has a falling, drastically falling birth rate. India's pretty steady, so India seems like it's going to be more ascendant in the future even than China. And they've had a lot of border disputes along the Himalay area, as they have with Islamic Pakistan. It's also the largest democracy in the world. So you add up all of these ingredients, and it seems like a natural ally of the United States in general, and Donald Trump in particular. Conservative governance, suspicious of China, democratic, English-speaking, closer to the United States than Islamic Pakistan. That has given us, you know, that was the sojourn or a base for bin Laden. And then more importantly, it is Indian Americans are now numbering five or six million people.

Starting point is 00:03:02 We've opened the borders wide open to people immigrating from India. And they immigrate often with the law. They have English facility, gets them a leg up on other immigrants. And more importantly, they come with capital and skills. And they're a very influential minority, very successful in the minority in the United States. and we welcome them with open arms. So you would think that the Modi-Trump Indian-American relationship would be great, but it's not. And why isn't it?

Starting point is 00:03:33 Well, one reason is that India traditionally ran large surpluses with us, given their tariffs and our lack of tariffs for India. But recently, that has closed, and now Indian economists and American economists and politicians disagree whether India, has a big surplus with the United States in trade or a small, depending on how you count material goods, services, remittances, etc. By the way, there's about $35 to $40 million a billion in remittances that go to India. It's right behind Mexico and Central America. So it should be a very profitable relationship, especially for India to have all of its citizens free to come to the United States, and millions apparently do, and they get billions of dollars in remittances. They run a trade surplus with us, and we have a lot of commonalities as English-speaking democracies,

Starting point is 00:04:32 but we're not, and so why aren't we? One of the greatest problems is Donald Trump slapped a tariff, and he said India's tariffs are too high, India replied, well, if you'd look at services and the other intangibles that I mentioned, maybe it's not that bad, and we're working on it, but Trump really does. did put high tariffs on India. The second thing is India buys a huge amount of Russian oil along with China. We're talking about secondary boycotts in the Trump administration of the United States, and what I mean by that is Trump will put high tariffs, if not sanctions, on countries that buy oil, not countries like buy Russian oil, not just Russia itself that sells its oil.

Starting point is 00:05:18 This is very controversial because in the Indian mind, we're not going to necessarily sanction Germany or some Europeans that buy Russian energy, natural gas, and oil, nor have we taken on the Chinese juggernaut that buys Russian oil. So India is saying, why are you picking on us an enemy of, or not an enemy, but a rival of China and so much commonality? And Trump would reply, because you've been buying Russian oil for over three and a half years and fueling the Russian war machine that invaded Ukraine and were now at delicate, critical periods in the Ukraine-Russian war. And if you were just to back off voluntarily the purchases of Russian oil and maybe we could then pressure China and maybe I could consider tariffs and Prime Minister Modi said no. And he not only said no, but he wasn't going to be bullied around. And one of the results is now he is triangulating with not only China and Russia.

Starting point is 00:06:26 So he's developing better relations with his traditional rival and enemy China. And he's cementing his relations with Russia. Remember during the Cold War, China was a Russian proxy. Excuse me, Russia was very close to India. India was a veritable proxy of Russia, and we backed Islamic Pakistan. So in those wars between Pakistan and India, there was a Russian-American dimension. We were on the wrong side of it, in my opinion, because India was an English-speaking democracy. Pakistan was an Islamic autocracy de facto.

Starting point is 00:07:03 But my point is that it has strong ties historically with Russia, and it's developing ties with China, and it's pulling away from us, despite the fact that we allow them trade concessions, asymmetrical tariffs, generous remittances to be sent back, and it's the second largest immigrant group in the United States. How is it all going to end? We'll see. A lot depends on the fate of the Ukraine war. If the Ukraine war were to end, we would restore friendly relations very quickly. If it doesn't, things are going to get worse. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis Hansen for the Daily Signal. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal.

Starting point is 00:07:48 Please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website at victorhansan.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.

The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: How US-India Tension Fuels Russia and China

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.