With Donald Trump being sworn in for the second time as the President of the United States, the revamp has begun from the White House itself. The single bed that his predecessor Joe Biden and his wife Jill slept on was moved out and in came two single large beds to be placed in two different rooms for Donald and Melania to sleep on. Diet Coke, Trump’s go-to drink, has reappeared in the White House…
Besides Trump’s proclivity to stymie the rise of a growing and more assertive China and China-baiter Pete Hegseth as the new US Defense Secretary, there is a strong likelihood that Quad or the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue will get a shot in the arm.
The Quad members are India, the US, Australia and Japan.
A cornerstone of Trump @ 1.0 foreign policy was a spotlight on China as an adversary. That policy may see a revival with the Indian Ocean being the region of focus rather than the Pacific region. Biden focused more on the Pacific region in the form of the AUKUS which comprises Australia, the UK and the US.
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Trump has already rescinded 78 orders of the previous Joe Biden-led government. But the sole purpose of that remains the same at the core—that of countering China.
After his swearing-in on Saturday, Hegseth made his intentions clear: “We will reestablish deterrence by defending our homeland—on the ground and in the sky. We will work with allies and partners to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific by Communist China, as well as supporting the President's priority to end wars responsibly and reorient to key threats.”
But there would be an adverse impact on India in two realms.
First is the declared Trump position on BRICS. A grouping of emerging economies that include India, Russia and China, BRICS has been vocal about ‘de-dollarisation’ with a new currency of exchange to the exclusion of the US dollar. Recently, Trump wrote on his social media platform: “We require a commitment from these countries that they will neither create a new BRICS currency nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar or they will face 100 per cent tariffs and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful US economy… They can go find another sucker.”
Secondly, Trump is expected to back up Israel to the hilt while cracking the whip on Iran. He will also try to put in as much distance as possible between the increasingly proximate front between Russia, China and Iran which will have severe political and economic fallouts if these three powers work in tandem. Here, India could stand to suffer because India, along with Russia and Iran are partners toin the key 7,200-km-long International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC). So, whatever trade and economic benefits India would be hoping from the INSTC might not fructify.
The multi-modal INSTC, using a network of sea, road, and rail routes, will cut down the time taken for movement of goods between India and Russia from the existing 40 days to about 20 days, bringing down carriage cost between India and Russia by about 30 per cent.
But the more significant aspect is that the route skirts around the Western-imposed economic sanctions on Russia as it is an alternative to the usual India-Russia trade route through the Suez Canal.
In other words, Indian strategy and diplomacy would be put to test. Already having ‘delicately’ balanced its position on the Russia-Ukraine and the Israel-Palestine front, whether India will be able to turn the odds to its favour once again is a question time will tell soon.
