India and US Trade War Isn’t Unreal

United States–India trade ties have been in news for all the wrong reasons, of late. There may be optimism that it’s just a mini conflict that can be resolved easily, but the road ahead is nothing short of thorny. It’s a crisis that can snowball into a big rift if not managed properly. The institutional arrangements that currently exist between US and India are unable to manage this conflict, as is clear from the continued tone of President Trump’s tweets and statements on India. What makes worse is the protectionist nature of the governments in both countries.

Let’s look at what both sides have built in trade over the years which will be all exposed to risks if the trade ties continue to be volatile:

• Bilateral trade in goods and services grew at an average annual rate of 7.59 percent between 2008 and 2018. This was double the value from $68.4 billion to $142.1 billion.
• US was India’s second-largest trading partner in goods in 2018, and the single largest export destination with $54.5 billion worth of goods shipped to the US in 2017.
• India was the ninth-largest trading partner of the United States in 2018 with US exports to India accounting for 2 percent of overall US exports in 2018, valued at an estimated $33.1 billion, up 87.3 percent from 2008.
• US service exports to India were an estimated $25.8 billion in 2018, up 157 percent from 2008.
• US arms exports to India touched $15 billion in the past decade.
• Exports to India supported an estimated one hundred and ninety-seven thousand US jobs in 2015.
• Bilateral FDI more than doubled from $24.3 billion in 2009 to $54.3 billion in 2017.

These numbers are enough to understand how important the US-India trade ties are. But as things stand, the disagreements are chronic and deep.  While Indian government’s efforts to engage in trade talks with the US have increased since 2018, the scope for existing Trade Policy Forum and the Indian Ministry for Commerce and Industry for talks between both countries remains limited. It doesn’t help that for bilateral talks, neither of the two countries has figured out an institutional mechanism to engage with each other beyond the Free Trade Agreements (but the recent conflict over FTAs negates even the possibility of any more FTAs in the near future). AT the WTO, they have sparred constantly with no concrete results.

A report released this month by the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center recommends that both US and Indian governments take steps to manage short-term disagreements and establish a more constructive relationship in the medium and long runs. This would clearly mean reviewing the existing institutional frameworks for reform, brainstorm on creating avenues for market opening agreements and draw a roadmap for the FTAs. It’s indeed a difficult ropewalk but much-needed. Read the detailed report here.