India has witnessed many ups and downs with the United States on the bilateral trade front in the last couple of years under the presidency of Republican Donald Trump.
With Joe Biden projected by mainstream media outlets to win the race for the White House, India can expect some of the unilateral trade restrictions imposed on the country to be withdrawn and a "meaningful engagement" on the trade front, analysts believe.
The analysts also say that to begin with, the Trump administration was fundamentally wrong in keeping both China and India at par as far as trade restrictions were concerned.
Rahul K. Mishra, a professor of strategy and international management at the IILM Institute of Higher Education, tells Sputnik, "Biden is expected to be far nuanced more and accommodative with India on the trade front. The Biden administration will be far more engaging on trade compared with the previous regime."
Mishra also points out that President Trump's restrictive trade policy towards India and keeping it on the same plank as China was essentially misguided.
Elaborating further, Mishra says, "The US, under Trump, clubbed India and China as far as trade restrictions were concerned. This, however, was a wrong thing in its inception as the US has a far bigger trade deficit with China in comparison with India. Also, India has no competition with the US on the technology front."
"On the flip side, India is a big market for the US in artificial intelligence, and its major companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon are heavily invested in India," Mishra continues, adding that India should demand the restoration of its GSP status.
International trade expert Biswajit Dhar, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), agrees that India will have leverage with the US under Biden as the former VP will at least respect the rules in trade deliberations.
"A Trump administration in the second term would be far more aggressive in tilting the tables in its favour in trade talks. Under Biden, the international conventions and rule book set by the World Trade Organisation will at least be respected," says Dhar.
A US-India trade deal has been pending for the past year. In November of last year, after India withdrew from the Regional Comprehensive Partnership (RCEP), a China-led mega trade bloc, and penned a free trade agreement (FTA) between the Association of South East Asian Nations plus six other countries, it initiated trade talks with the US.
Both India and the US wanted to sign a free trade agreement. After several rounds of discussions, the FTA with the US is still in limbo, and even a limited trade deal has not been signed between the two nations. It was expected that a limited trade pact would be signed between the US and India in February of this year on the sidelines of Donald Trump’s first official visit to the South Asian country. It could not be signed, as Washington was demanding access to India’s dairy and meat market, for which Delhi was not ready. During the visit, Trump rued the fact that India was imposing high tariffs on the US.
