Trump’s Republic Day visit call likely after 2+2 dialogue: President of US-India Forum

The US is likely to take a call on President Donald Trump being the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations after the 2+2 dialogue, says Mukesh Aghi, president of US-India Strategic Partnership Forum. Aghi spoke to ET on a range of issues, from solutions for backend services to new Indian data privacy moves to the offerings by US companies for Indian defence contracts. Excerpts:

TRUMP VISIT
On a possible visit by US President Donald Trump for the Republic day celebrations in January, Aghi said that discussions are on. “It is still on the table, he (Trump) values India as a very strong partner. And my feeling is after the 2+2 they will take a call. The matter is currently resting with the White House,” he said.

On the trade imbalance, the executive feels that it is being corrected and will disappear over time. “In the next five years, you will see the trade balance almost getting even. India has roughly a 1,000-plane order on the civilian side and it imported $2 billion of energy, this trend will continue. The trade imbalance issue will disappear over time,” he said.


H-1B VISAS
Making a case for ‘subtle diplomacy’ over the H-1B visa issues, Aghi warned that it was a political and sovereignty issue for the US and has to be handled with care.

While India sees it as strategic issue as it gets an annual market of $ 60 billion in the US, Aghi said that it has political implications as blue collar jobs have moved out of the US. “When media writes about H-1B replacing local workers it plays into the political scenario. It is also a sovereignty issue for the US,” he said.

DEFENCE TECH TRANSFER
Drawing a comparison with the space sector, Aghi said that defence companies have not progressed here to provide even basic equipment like Kevlar vests and night vision devices and that the Indian governments vision to liberalise the sector have not taken off.

“The US is a good example, everything is privatised and here is competition. And I think the vision of the PM is also to create this ecosystem. And that somehow has not taken off. It is a chicken and egg situation. Companies are not going to say I will put $200 mn investment and I have only one customer and if they don’t buy the investment will go down the drain. And, the government cannot commit to buy because it has its own processes. We have to break that cycle,” he said.

DATA PRIVACY
Aghi says global companies like Visa and Mastercard have genuine concerns over security that have to be addressed, suggesting that mirroring of servers could be the best solution to meet concerns of these firms as well as the Indian government.


“I think mirroring makes all the sense. It is a better solution, it is not that expensive and it addresses the need. I have talked to them (Visa and Mastercard) on this issue, absolutely. They are not opposed to providing data access, they don’t want to get isolated from the global community,” he added.

INDIAN AMERICAN INFLUENCE
USISPF is now reaching out to Indian Americans who contributed to the political campaign in the US last year, sharing that the biggest ever contribution of $35 million was made by these individuals.

“Last year Indian Americans contributed $ 35m in political campaign. We did an analysis and roughly there are 300 of them who contributed this funding. Now we are reaching out to each one of them to see who has what relationship with the Congressman or Senator. So when we have an issue, we reach out to the Indian American for help. And that seems to work very well. This is the biggest ever list of Indian contributors,” he said.

SANCTIONS AND INDIA
Aghi says that sanctions are now a non-issue after the special waiver for India as well as its categorisation into the STA 1 list that eases transfer of sensitive equipment to India for US defence companies.

“For example, you have the armed drones. The STA 1 will give India more access to things that were off the list. The waiver thing has become a non-issue. US companies like Boeing, Lockheed will aggressively push the continued process (of waivers),” he said.