Another Nail In The Coffin Of India-U.S. Ties

Face the stark truth. Every step that Donald Trump takes will be against Latinos or Indians. All this talk about “My good friend Modi” is beginning to grate in the ears. And in one fell swoop, the U.S. President has now hit Indians in the stomach with his punitive annual fee of $1,00,000 (nearly Rs 90 lakhs) on H-1B visas. The move will hit all those who take these visas to work in the U.S. but consider the fact that Indians take over 70% of such visas granted every year in the H-1B visa lottery (Chinese less than 2%) and you know who the worst hit will be. It is becoming easy to see through this good-cop-bad-cop act that Trump was running with his aides like Navarro and Lutnick berating India at every turn while the U.S president speaks lovingly of India and its PM Modi. The trade talks may have been resumed but the U.S. well knows that India will not let two red lines be breached. Opening the agriculture sector is a no-no forever while the buying of Russian oil will go on till everything else is agreed upon and a trade deal is on the table ready to be signed.  No amount of posturing is going to change the fundamental position that Trump has taken against India and with Pakistan, partly because Pakistan played up to him and even invested in his family cryptocurrency business. Trump may not forget in a hurry the image of Vladimir Putin inviting Narendra Modi into his limousine in China even if he himself did share a limo ride with the Russian President in Alaska. If anyone believes things can be sorted with Trump and the U.S. soon, they may have other thoughts coming up.