US, India may see stronger alignment during Trump's second term, says FIIDS founder

There is a possibility of stronger alignment between India and the United States during Donald Trump's second term, which could enhance diplomatic efforts on pressing global issues, such as the Russia-Ukraine crisis, according to the founder of a prominent advocacy group focused on the Indian diaspora. President-elect Trump will return to the White House as US President on Monday.

"Trump 2.0 administration is going to be much more mature and additionally different from the Biden administration," Khanderao Kand, founder and director of Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS) told PTI in an interview.

"We would see a much more mature ongoing policy alignment in the area of South Asia and also the Indo-Pacific," he said.


On Trump's anticipated stand on the Russia-Ukraine crisis, Kand said, "India has consistently taken a stand that it needs to be engaged diplomatically and resolve the problem. Trump seems to have the similar viewpoint that there has to be a settlement and negotiations into that," he said.

"There is a good alignment into those areas...We will see further progress towards working together towards the global causes," Kand, a Silicon Valley-based tech entrepreneur, said.

India and the US during Trump's second term are also expected to see better alignment on some sore points from the Indian foreign policy perspective like Canada and Bangladesh.

"When it comes to trade, we would see that President Trump is America first... In that case, there are certain things about the tariff, but I would say that the US and India would work out some transactional way to address all these tariffs and have frictionless further progress," he said.

On H-1B visas, Kand said: "It seems that Trump and now with (Tesla owner) Elon Musk, (Vice President) JD Vance and (Indian-American) Vivek Ramaswamy. They are into the power circle who understand the need of USA to have the tech immigrants for maintaining the competitiveness of America in the global stage, particularly from artificial intelligence or cyber security," Kand said.

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.

Technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.