Beyond the announcement of a Strategic Defence Partnership, steps to deepen tech cooperation were the key outcomes of the UAE President’s visit to New Delhi.
This week, at the invitation of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ) visited India. This was his fifth visit of the last ten years and his third official visit as President of the UAE.
While the visit was short (about three hours), it was substantive with the comprehensive set of outcomes announced by the two sides. Of which, the most significant takeaway was the signing of the Letter of Intent towards the conclusion of the India-UAE Strategic Defence Partnership. As per an official readout, this will expand defence cooperation across a number of areas, “including defence industrial collaboration, defence innovation and advanced technology, training, education and doctrine, special operations and interoperability, cyber space, counter terrorism.”
Amid US-Iran tensions, rumoured expansion of the Saudi Arabia-Pakistan defence pact, and reports of a Saudi-Emirati rift over Yemen, the elevation of defence cooperation as “a core pillar” of the India-UAE partnership is a significant development.
However, the UAE President’s visit also yielded some notable agreements that are indicative of deepening India-UAE tech cooperation.
India and the UAE share a comprehensive partnership, underpinned by strong people-to-people ties (Indians form the largest ethnic community in the UAE) and cooperation at multilateral fora (including through recent minilaterals like the I2U2, UAE-France-India trilateral). However, trade has been the partnership’s dominant theme in recent years. The economic realm of the partnership is supported by the India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), the Local Currency Settlement (LCS) system, and the Bilateral Investment Treaty.
With CEPA for instance, India-UAE bilateral trade reached USD 100.06 billion in FY2024–25. Since CEPA came into force in May 2022, India-UAE bilateral merchandise trade has more than doubled (from USD 43.3 billion in FY2020-21). Whereas, non-oil trade has reached USD 57.8 billion (in FY2023-24) towards the bilateral goal of overseeing expansion of non-oil trade to USD 100 billion by 2030.
During the UAE President’s visit to India, the two sides pledged to double overall bilateral trade to USD 200 billion by 2032.
However, as noted in the Joint Statement released at the conclusion of the visit, the two sides are also looking to expand the ambit of India-UAE bilateral cooperation, by strengthening collaboration in science, technology and innovation, especially in the areas of AI and emerging technologies.
During the visit, India and the UAE announced the joint development of a supercomputing cluster. Under the AI India Mission, C-DAC India and G42 UAE will collaborate to set up a supercomputing cluster in India, and make it “available to private and public sector for research, application development and commercial use.” The two sides have also agreed to explore setting up Digital/Data Embassies under mutually recognised sovereignty arrangements.
These agreements stand in line with the UAE’s efforts to develop its own tech and AI propositions. Over the past few years, the UAE’s AI ambitions have included capacity-building efforts with tech giants (like Microsoft), strategic investments by its sovereign wealth funds, and comprehensive tech partnerships (chiefly, with the US). The UAE has also successfully navigated the ambiguities of US President Donald Trump’s decision to scrap his predecessor’s ‘AI Diffusion Policy’, and secured approvals for importing US semiconductors for its AI projects. Just this week, G42 UAE’s CEO announced that the first shipments of advanced chips (by Nvidia, AMD and Cerebras Systems) will arrive in the UAE within the next few months.
In addition, the two sides agreed to explore cooperation in advanced nuclear technologies, including “development and deployment of large nuclear reactors and Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), as well as cooperation in advanced reactor systems, nuclear power plant operations and maintenance and nuclear safety.”
This shortly follows India’s enactment of the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Bill, which aims to reduce India’s dependence on fossil fuels by gradually opening up the civil nuclear sector to private participation.
The UAE may have some pertinent takeaways for rapid expansion in this sector. For instance, a year into its full operationalisation, the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant began providing 25% of the UAE’s total electricity needs and significantly advanced Abu Dhabi’s clean energy transition. This week, media reports suggested that the UAE is exploring export of components that it has produced to build its own nuclear energy infrastructure.
Such varied projects deepening India-UAE tech cooperation also stand in line with India’s adaptive tech strategy, which has encompassed capacity building measures (like bolstering domestic production and refining capacities for critical minerals) and comprehensive tech partnerships with likeminded partners (like Japan and the UK).
Whereas, as the UAE seeks to develop its own tech and AI propositions, cooperation with India may yield crucial learnings on deploying digital services securely and at scale. This has been apparent with India’s successful deployment of numerous Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) platforms for secure digital services and real-time administrative processes.
Moreover, India’s vibrant start up ecosystem, which registered 44,000 start ups in 2025 alone, offers avenues for early-stage collaboration in emergent sectors (fintech, healthtech and agritech) that present fertile ground for digitally-enabled and scalable solutions. Similarly, under the India AI Mission, New Delhi is prioritising next-gen innovation, with a focus on harnessing the power of AI through applications for agriculture, healthcare, education, and governance.
In this context of scale and innovation, one may also note the pertinence of the Letter of Intent finalised between the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) and the Space Agency of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for space industry development and commercial collaboration. As per an official readout, this would encompass India and the UAE developing joint infrastructure for space and commercialization, including “launch complexes, manufacturing and technology zones, incubation centre and accelerator for space start-ups, training institute and exchange programmes.”
Finally, as seen in case of India’s deepening tech cooperation with Japan and the UK, India and the UAE are also focusing on cross-pollination between their innovation ecosystems. This includes the India-UAE announcement on encouraging linkages between Indian and Emirati universities and expanding student exchanges to serve as “knowledge bridges”, and overtime develop innovation labs in educational institutions.
Hence, beyond the focus on India-UAE trade and defence cooperation, deepening tech cooperation reflects the synergy between India’s adaptive tech strategy and the UAE’s capacity building on tech and AI propositions.
New Delhi and London are expanding bilateral tech cooperation, with a first-principles focus on interlinking their innovation and research ecosystems.
This month, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited India, accompanied by a high-level delegation including 125 business leaders, entrepreneurs, university officials and cultural leaders. The visit followed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s July 2025 visit to the UK, which oversaw the finalization of the India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), the India-UK Vision 2035, and the India-UK Defense Industrial Roadmap.
This comprehensive set of outcomes – including the target to double bilateral trade by 2030 (from around USD 56 billion at present) – reflects the momentum underpinning the India-UK strategic partnership.
Another aspect of this upward trajectory of relations between New Delhi and London has been the deepening bilateral tech partnership.
During the UK Prime Minister’s visit to India, the two sides announced some outcomes on bilateral tech cooperation that reflect a first-principles focus on interlinking the two nations’ innovation and research ecosystems.
The two sides announced the India–UK Connectivity and Innovation Centre, for jointly developing AI native network for 6G, Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTNs), and cyber security for telecoms. The two sides also announced the establishment of the India–UK Joint Centre for AI, for jointly advancing AI propositions across domains like health, climate, fintech, etc.
These initiatives were announced under the ambit of the India-UK Technology Security Initiative (TSI), which was launched in 2024 under the stewardship of the two nations’ National Security Advisors (NSAs), to identify interdependencies and avenues for cooperation on critical and emerging technologies. A year since its establishment, the India-UK TSI has already gathered much momentum on India-UK joint innovation. For instance, in 2024, the TSI launched a flagship GBP 7 million joint research programme to support joint Open RAN and 5G/6G testbed development.
India and the UK have similarly committed to unlocking new financing opportunities for next-gen tech innovation. During UK PM Starmer’s visit to India, the two sides announced a new joint investment in the Climate Technology Startup Fund, an innovation finance initiative for climate technologies, overseen by the UK Government and the State Bank of India (SBI). This effort puts London at the heart of New Delhi’s next-gen infrastructure priorities, such as India’s target of achieving 500 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030.
India and the UK are also narrowing their focus on the basic building blocks for next-gen technologies and electronics manufacturing. The India-UK TSI has successfully completed the first phase of the India-UK Critical Minerals Supply Chain Observatory, supported by the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) of the University of Cambridge. During the UK PM’s visit to India, the two sides announced the second phase of the observatory, with a new campus at the Indian Institute of Technology-Indian School of Mines (IIT-ISM), Dhanbad.
These efforts on fostering people-to-people and institutional linkages across Indian and British academic, research, and start-up ecosystems are timely, particularly from the standpoint of the spillover effects of the US-China tech rivalry.
This month’s rupture in US-China relations stemmed from frictions of the US-China tech rivalry, which has seen both sides vying for competitive advantage over next-gen technologies. Beijing’s announcement of sweeping restrictions on exports that contain even small traces of Chinese rare earths, demonstrate China’s willingness to leverage its hold over production, processing and export of critical minerals.
The latest round of restrictions build on China’s April 2025 decision to require licenses for export of rare earth alloys, mixtures, and magnets, and its December 2024 decision on banning export of gallium, germanium and antimony for the US specifically. However, the latest restrictions are significantly broader in scope and risk grave implications for manufacturing operations across the world.
While the move may be to build negotiating leverage ahead of a prospective bilateral between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, the US-China tech rivalry has now begun to present global ramifications.
The Trump-Biden-Trump continuity on restricting China’s access to American tech components has raised pressures of compliance. Recently, Malaysia announced permit mandates for export of American semiconductors to clamp down against transshipment of critical tech components to China. Whereas, Singapore has cracked down against reported routing of Nvidia’s chips to China’s DeepSeek. The Trump administration has also reportedly continued the predecessor Biden administration’s aim of leveling the global playing field for US companies, which are complying with existing American restrictions on China’s access to chip-making equipment and maintenance services. This includes seeking greater compliances from Dutch and Japanese companies, despite Tokyo and Amsterdam aligning their respective export mandates with American mandates in early 2025.
Such rising global considerations of regulatory and compliance-related issues of the US-China rivalry have also been apparent in India’s partnership with the UK.
For instance, the India-UK Vision 2035, which was finalized during PM Modi’s July 2025 visit to London, underscored the need for greater cooperation on compliance-related issues.
As the vision document outlined bilateral India-UK aspirations, it also stressed on the need for regular ‘Strategic Export & Technology Cooperation Dialogues’ to “address licensing and export controls issues, unlocking and enabling high-value trade in critical, emerging and other high-end technologies, including in the defence, security and aerospace sectors.”
Amid rising securitization of tech components and related supply chains, India and the UK are well placed to develop a comprehensive tech partnership, given the two nations’ first-principles focus on interlinking innovation and research ecosystems. This includes the discussed India-UK research partnerships, cross-pollination between innovation ecosystems, and joint development programs, which will foster a collaborative culture of research and development between New Delhi and London.
The importance of such long-term efforts was also evident in the EU’s recent Joint Communication on India, which now recommends setting up of ‘EU-India Innovation Hubs’ and ‘Blue Valleys’, as multi-stakeholder platforms for facilitating investments, aligning standards, and encouraging cross-sectoral collaboration.
In addition, India-UK convergence on critical minerals, including the UK-India Critical Minerals Guild, also opens up opportunities to collaborate with other like-minded partner nations, chiefly in Asia. For instance, this year, the India-Japan Memorandum of Cooperation in the Field of Mineral Resources was also finalised. New Delhi’s focus on this issue has been apparent across its global engagements, with India also endorsing the G7 Critical Minerals Action Plan in June 2025.
Moreover, with collaboration in the education sector, India and the UK are going a step further on their first-principles focus. During the UK PM’s visit to India, the two sides hailed the progress towards the opening of campuses of nine UK universities in India.
There is also immense scope for India and the UK to draw on each other’s unique strengths, such as India’s successful deployment and expansion of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) platforms and the broader ‘Digital India’ push (which completes 10 years this year). Amid reports of the UK exploring its own digital ID system, UK PM Starmer recently hailed India’s Aadhaar digital identification programme, which underpins India’s push for greater financial inclusion, secure digital identity-based authentication processes, and transparent digital governance.
Going forward, the recently finalized India-UK Vision 2035 and the India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) present much momentum for New Delhi and London to now develop deeper institutional and talent-mobility bridges between their tech ecosystems.
With Trump’s return, New Delhi can proactively leverage its strengths to address challenges in India-US trade and technology partnership
During President Donald J. Trump’s previous term (2017-21), there was an overt attention on India-US trade issues. This pertained to India’s trade surplus with the US (around USD 35 billion); market access issues with India (for US dairy, pharma & agricultural exports); and US suspension of Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) benefits for Indian exports.
Nevertheless, on India-US strategic ties under Trump, the relationship went from strength to strength. Particularly on defense and strategic aspects, this included finalization of new interoperability agreements (COMCASA, BECA), continuity on defense exports (AH-6E Apaches, CH-47 Chinooks, MH-60R Seahawks), new precedents on defense technology transfers (STA-1 designation), etc.
The constructive record on India-US strategic partnership was a direct result of President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to insulate strategic priorities from differences on trade and commercial ties.
Most notably, this included the two nations engaging on strategic issues under the India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue (between India’s Minister of External Affairs, India’s Minister of Defense, US Secretary of State, and US Secretary of Defense). Earlier, India and the US engaged under the India-US Strategic and Commercial Dialogue (S&CD), where trade and strategic issues would often get interlinked.
This compartmentalized approach continued under US President Joe Biden, with the revival of US-India Trade Policy Forum, US-India Commercial Dialogue, and US-India CEO Forum. Together with the 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue, these platforms serve as dedicated channels for cooperation – to ensure that divergences in one area do not impede progress in another.
Continuity on this approach also yielded results with India and the US finalizing a framework agreement on ‘2 vs. 2 Agri market access issues’. This pertained to addressing market access issues for Indian mangoes & pomegranates and US cherries & alfalfa hay.
Over the past few years, the scramble for ‘future-proofing’ globalization has underscored the securitization of supply chains, particularly in the critical domains of telecommunications, semiconductors and clean energy technologies.
Amid various approaches under terms like ‘de-risking’, ‘friend-shoring’, ‘China+1 strategies’, India has embraced issue-based multi-alignments.
This is reflected in India’s swift finalization of mutually-beneficial trade agreements with Australia, European Free Trade Association (EFTA), and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In addition, negotiations are reportedly underway with the UK, the EU, Israel, Oman, Peru and the GCC. This raises India’s prospects to emerge as what IMF terms as a ‘connector country’, which offers a gateway to the world apart from its own sizable market.
This complements New Delhi’s push for export-led growth, which has been on an encouraging trajectory. For instance, India registered record exports in 2023-24 at USD 778 billion, up from around USD 500 billion in 2020-2021. As per estimates by India’s Commerce Ministry, by 2030, exports from India will breach the USD 2 trillion-mark. Wherein, goods export of USD 1 trillion will oversee CAGR growth of 11-12% and services export of USD 1 trillion will register CAGR of 18-19%.
With Trump recently reiterating his intention to impose reciprocal taxes and accusing India of charging “high tariffs”, New Delhi is reportedly considering tariff cuts on certain US products. This preemptive action could possibly cover products like pork, high-end medical devices (like pace makers), and luxury motor-cycles (primarily Harley Davidson motorcycles).
This would pick up from the limited progress made under the previous Trump administration. In 2020, India and the US were in talks for a ‘mini deal’, which was reportedly aimed at eliminating India’s restrictions on imported electronics, medical devices and farm goods – in exchange for the US restoring India’s benefits under the GSP.
Moreover, the proactive effort to cut tariffs may also reportedly include assurances by New Delhi to continue the pace of recent increase in India’s import of US energy, defense platforms, and civilian aircraft.
This could also present India with fertile ground for underscoring its de-risking credentials.
With its recent trade agreements and impetus to export-led growth, New Delhi may seek to attract US businesses looking for dependable regulatory environments and politically-aligned destinations to safeguard supply chains. Such an effort could also benefit from Trump’s threat to impose 60% tariffs on China.
The synergy for increased India-US cooperation on supply chains is most apparent in the tech domain. As NITI Aayog’s Arvind Virmani recently observed: “It is in the interest of the US and India that more of critical manufacturing or sensitive manufacturing be done in India rather than China.”
Under Biden, India and the US raised the bar on bilateral tech partnership with the India-US initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET). This platform offers an overarching framework for bilateral tech cooperation, to include emergent domains like clean energy technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI), and also lend direction to India-US defense tech cooperation in the wider context of bilateral synergies.
With its two iterations in January 2023 and June 2024, iCET has already registered considerable progress – from signing research partnerships for early-stage innovation, identifying prospects for joint funding, to announcing workforce development programs and joint readiness assessments. Overtime, iCET has the potential to help develop mutually-beneficial bridges between Indian and American tech ecosystems.
However, there are foreseeable impediments to the high promise of iCET.
For instance, Washington’s efforts to stem Beijing’s tech strides are increasingly impacting US allies and partners. This ranges from the Biden administration’s effort to seek cooperation from allies (like Japan and the Netherlands) to restrict flow of chip-making tech to China to preconditioning US investments in partner nations (like the UAE) in exchange for them severing links with Chinese suppliers (like Huawei).
With US-China tech competition expected to only further intensify under Trump, this trend could pose new impediments to India-US iCET, chiefly on sharing of critical technologies.
Hence, under India-US iCET, there is now scope for the platform to also assume a troubleshooting mandate – chiefly on coordination of export controls overseen by the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and other entities like the US Treasury Department.
Such an additional mandate for the iCET will strengthen the proactive disposition of India-US tech cooperation – by developing an ahead-of-the-curve screening mechanism to flag emergent divergences.
Views expressed in this commentary are personal.
Following an expansion of Congressional role in foreign policy decision-making under Trump, the influence of progressive Democrats over Biden’s agenda bears mixed prospects for India-US ties
Under Donald Trump, the US witnessed a power tussle between the executive and the legislature over foreign policy decision-making. While such a tussle had been in the offing over the post-9/11 consolidation of powers by the executive, bipartisan and bicameral anxieties in the US Congress over Trump’s ‘America First’ approach only accentuated that tension. In guarding core tenets of post-Cold War US foreign policy, Republicans and Democrats passed stop-gap provisions to prevent Trump from downgrading US alliance commitments and even mandated congressional authorisation over the prospect of Trump engaging in military adventurism. Beyond this preservationist focus, following the 2018 midterms—which propelled Democrats to assume control of the House of Representatives—the 116th US Congress shaped Trump’s policy on China’s human rights record through resolutions on Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and Tibet.
Ahead of the 2020 election, increased congressional role in foreign policy was expected to continue under Joe Biden, since he had acknowledged the need to reverse the executive’s consolidation of powers—particularly over US administrations’ misuse of post-9/11 Authorisations for the Use of Military Force (AUMFs). However, unlike the Trump years, which witnessed congressional intervention in foreign policy through legislative efforts to curb executive authority, Biden’s foreign policy is being shaped by intra-party schisms.
Before the 2020 election, progressives in the Democratic Party deemed foreign policy as “an enormous area” for pushing Biden “in a more progressive direction”. In devising its electoral agenda, the Biden campaign also gave into progressives’ push on some issues (like refraining from out-hawking Trump on China), given Biden’s limited ‘room for manoeuvre’ on accommodating progressives on polarising domestic issues. However, post election, the influence of progressives over foreign policy was expected to be limited, in view of centrist Democrats assuming leadership positions in the 117th US Congress.
Despite intra-party clamour for a new generation of leadership, Rep. Nancy Pelosi was elected for her fourth non-consecutive term as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and four-term US Senator, Chuck Schumer became the Senate Majority Leader. In the 2020 election, instead of expanding their 232-197 House majority of the 116th Congress, Democrats slipped to a 219-211 majority in the 117th Congress. Centrists attributed that loss to the progressive agenda, since many Democrats ran on polarising prescriptions like “defund the police”. Such an assessment helped centrists sustain control of the Democratic caucus. However, the election did not underscore the electorate’s rejection of progressives.
This was apparent with the re-election of the progressive ‘Squad‘—Reps. Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley—who have been at the forefront of the progressive movement amongst young voters. Freshmen progressives like Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush won, after defeating centrist Democrats and party elites like 16-term Congressman Eliot Engel and 10-term Congressman William Lacy Clay Jr.
As a result, despite the overall Democratic caucus shrinking by a dozen seats, membership to the congressional progressive caucus continued to remain above its pre-2018 ‘Blue Wave’ midterms level—with 93 progressives amongst 219 Democrats in the 117th Congress. Hence, the centrist Democratic leadership has made way for progressives to assume primary membership on important House oversight committees, that hone influence over Biden’s domestic agenda.
On foreign policy, centrists have begun to toe the progressive line. Recently, this was evident amidst progressives calling attention to American complicity in Israeli actions against Palestinians. Prominent pro-Israel centrists (like, Sen. Chris Coons and Rep. Jerry Nadler) spoke out against Israeli police violence and evictions of Palestinians from East Jerusalem. This put pressure on the Biden White House to also craft a balanced position on underscoring support for Israel and also urging it to roll back evictions.
Similarly, Biden’s decision to merely suspend US support for the Saudi Arabia-led offensive in Yemen, spurred progressives to pressure centrists (including some Biden allies on the Hill) to push for more stringent action. This led to the Biden administration acting upon the 2019 Congressional mandate for the Director of National Intelligence to release an assessment on Riyadh’s role in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.
Following India’s abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, New Delhi incurred attention under progressives’ push against Trump’s policy of “divorcing” values from foreign policy. At a House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) hearing in October 2019, progressives decried New Delhi’s communications blockade and detentions in Kashmir. Progressive Congresswomen Tlaib and Pramila Jayapal also tabled two House Resolutions on the matter. Then-Chair of HFAC, centrist Rep. Elliot Engel also joined progressives in the October 2019 hearing to focus on developments in Kashmir. However, an intra-party schism on the matter had been apparent.
Following India’s abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, Engel had issued a joint statement with another centrist Democrat from the US Senate, Sen. Bob Menendez. In their statement, HFAC Chairman Engel and then-Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) Menendez aligned with the Trump administration to not outrightly comment on India’s actions in Kashmir. Engel was also reported to have been involved in stalling progressives’ House resolutions, which were critical of Trump’s ambivalence and New Delhi’s actions.
Subsequently, as discussed, Engel was ousted after being primaried by progressive candidate Jamaal Bowen. The progressive campaign against Engel largely focused on his foreign policy record, that stood in contrast with progressives’ push for US focus on human rights issues as a guiding principle for ties with adversaries and partners alike. Viewed in this context, Sen. Menendez’s (now, Chairman of the SFRC) public letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin—which urged him to raise the “deteriorating situation of democracy” during his visit to India in March 2021—possibly stemmed from political considerations to avoid his centrist colleague Rep. Engel’s fate.
In addition, Menendez’ letter hinted at limits to New Delhi’s “ability to work with the US on development and procurement of sensitive military technology.” Although Menendez invoked that threat with reference to India’s defence ties with Russia, it came at a time when progressives have been clamouring for conditioning US arms exports as per human rights concerns.
Shortly after Austin’s visit to India, the Biden administration cleared its first arms sale for India, with the Defence Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) announcing the sale of six P-8I maritime surveillance aircraft. Concurrently, the DSCA also sent a notification on the sale to HFAC and SFRC, as per the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) which permits legislators to raise concerns within 30 days of receiving the notification.
Although that 30-day window has now elapsed in case of the P-8I sale (which renders the Biden administration free to proceed with the sale), the period coincided with increased rancour by progressives to legislatively block Biden’s US $735 million arms sale to Israel over human rights concerns. While the Congressional Research Service notes that the Congress has “never successfully blocked a proposed arms sale by use of a joint resolution of disapproval”, it remains to be seen if progressives seek an expansion of legislative powers on this aspect. For instance, in the 115th and 116th Congress, progressives sought amendments to AECA to align House procedures with the Senate, over legislators in the House also having the right to “force debate on the House floor” if HFAC does not raise concerns over a sale.
However, progressives’ rising influence over Biden’s foreign policy has also proved instrumental in resolving some divergences in India-US ties.
As India grappled with a resurgent wave of the coronavirus pandemic, the Biden administration oversaw a ‘whole of society’ mobilisation of aid from USAID, corporate America, India-centric trade advocacy groups, and even the Indian diaspora. In its support for India, the Biden administration also rolled back its restriction on the export of vaccine raw-materials. However, on Biden’s holdout on India and South Africa’s appeal at the WTO for a temporary waiver of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) for COVID-19 vaccines, progressives lent the required push.
In reviving the intra-party tussle over ‘pro-worker progressivism’ and ‘anti-corporate progressivism’, progressives criticised Biden for prioritising pharmaceutical companies’ profitsby maintaining exclusivity on vaccine production. Despite the Biden administration rationalising its opposition to the waiver under its ‘pro-worker’ agenda to bolster America’s domestic production base, the progressive pushback gathered support from centrists as well. This eventually led to the Biden administration announcing US support for the TRIPS waiver.
Hence, under Biden, India-US ties face mixed prospects with progressives in the Democratic Party seeking a reformist bent to the US Congress’ preservationist role in foreign policy decision-making.
On mounting pressure to punish Saudi Arabia for its alleged involvement in the disappearance of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, Trump recently announced that he wouldn’t prefer to impose sanctions. Referring to impending U.S. weapons sales to Saudi Arabia worth billions, he said, “This took place in Turkey and to the best of our knowledge, Khashoggi is not a United States citizen… I don’t like stopping massive amounts of money that’s being poured into our country.” This apparent cold realpolitik fed a flurry of articles and denunciations on the president’s unwillingness to uphold liberal democratic values vis-à-vis socio-political and human rights violations abroad. By contrast, the Trump administration’s policy towards China is increasingly laden with derisions of its record on socio-political freedoms.
Earlier this month, Vice President Pence delivered a major policy speech underscoring the Trump administration’s policy towards China. Pence noted the “hope” of China expanding freedom –– “not just economically, but politically, with a newfound respect for classical liberal principles, private property, personal liberty, religious freedom –– the entire family of human rights”, to have “gone unfulfilled.” He portrayed China as “an unparalleled surveillance state” that aimed to “drastically” restrict “the free flow of information to the Chinese people.” Pence even accused Beijing of wanting to “implement an Orwellian system premised on controlling virtually every facet of human life.”
Further, he went on to list instances of religious persecutions. With respect to Chinese Christians, Pence accused the Chinese authorities of “tearing down crosses, burning bibles, and imprisoning believers.” On Beijing “cracking down” on Buddhism, Pence referenced “more than 150 Tibetan Buddhist monks” to have “lit themselves on fire to protest China’s repression of their beliefs and their culture.” As for the state of Islam in the Xinjiang province, he accused Beijing to have “imprisoned as many as one million Muslim Uyghurs in government camps” in an attempt to “strangle Uyghur culture and stamp out the Muslim faith.” Finally, he also assailed against Chinese attempts to stifle freedom across academia, entertainment and the media.
This iteration of American policy towards China came as a welcomed contrast to Trump administration’s disdain for a linkage of values and policy. In characterising Trump’s ‘America First’ policy in early 2017, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke of decoupling US foreign policy and values. On U.S.’ commitment to human rights and socio-political freedoms around the world, he notably deemed them as American “values” and “not our policies.” The Trump administration’s maiden National Security Strategy also noted an interests-heavy approach and emphasised a disdain for a values-policy linkage with the disclaimer: “We are not going to impose our values on others.”
One may argue that with respect to China, however, the pertinence of a values-centric U.S. foreign policy has been a standard fixture. The same can be traced back to the 1959 speech by then-Senator John F. Kennedy, in which he deemed “Red China” to have sought a “route of regimented controls and ruthless denial of human rights.”
Further, the values-centric approach towards China continued well into the post-Cold War U.S. worldview –– from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice deeming China’s sentencing of human rights activists as “deeply disturbing” to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stating that China “should face consequences and international condemnation” for its internet freedom restrictions.
From a pure realpolitik standpoint, one may even argue that a values-centric approach was bound to become a standard fixture, as China was “replacing the Soviet military of the pre-Gorbachev years and the Japanese economy of the 1970s as the next big purported threat to American global leadership.” For instance, in the 1992 U.S. presidential election, the need for an assertive U.S. policy towards China was at the fore. Referring to the events of June 1989 in Tiananmen Square, then-Governor Bill Clinton rallied against American ambivalence especially when “all those kids went out there carrying the Statue of Liberty in Tiananmen Square.” Once in office, President Clinton even walked the talk to oversee the passing of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the 1974 Trade Act –– which required him to annually review the decision to continue to accord the Most-Favoured-Nation status to China contingent on its improvements on the human rights front.
However, the centrality of the values-centric approach in U.S. policy fizzled overtime. First, in view of China’s large market potentialities, the U.S. adopted a pragmatic, economic-centric approach. Encapsulated in its attempt to induct China as a “responsible stakeholder” in the U.S.-led world order, the Permanent Normal Trade Relations was passed to end the “annual ritual of reviewing China’s trade status”, and eventually pave way for China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation.
Second, the three Ts –– Taiwan, Tibet and Tiananmen –– that dominated the values-centric approach, stood dampened, as China’s relative military advantage vis-à-vis Taiwan grew, the state-sponsored Sinicisation of Tibet marginalised the natives, and the Tiananmen incident faded in Chinese collective memory due to stringent internet censorship.
Under its declared return of an era of “great power competition”, the Trump administration has adopted a confrontational approach towards China with the increased adoption of trade tariffs and a steady frequency of U.S. Freedom of Navigation Operations in the South China Sea. Additionally, there also seems to be an attempt to reinstate the U.S. values-laden approach.
On Taiwan, the Trump administration has not shied away from lauding Taiwan’s “embrace of democracy” as representing “a better path for all the Chinese people.” Although some past U.S. administrations have done so, the post-normalisation precedent has largely been to temper U.S. endorsements as the Communist Party of China has long viewed the same as an “all-out Westernisation” campaign to dislodge its rule. The Trump administration has, however, doubled-down not only by considerably ramping up defence exports to Taiwan, but by also entering the China-Taiwan diplomatic fray. Last month, it recalled U.S. ambassadors to the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Panama for their decision to no longer recognise Taiwan. Moreover, Trump also signed the Taiwan Travel Act to “permit high-level Taiwanese officials to enter the United States under respectful conditions and to meet with U.S. officials, including officials from the Departments of State and Defense.” The same challenges the ‘One China’ policy’s unstated dictum of refraining to host Taiwanese delegations which may be construed as according implied recognition of Taiwanese statehood.
On China’s restrictive visa policy, the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed The Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act of 2018 by a unanimous voice vote. The bill aims to impose consequences for China’s restrictive access to Tibet which prevents “journalists from observing human rights abuses in Tibet and preventing Tibetan Americans from visiting their home country.” Under the bill’s provisions, Chinese authorities who are involved in the implementation of such restrictive visa polices will become ineligible to receive a visa or be admitted into the U.S.. Given the strong bipartisan nature of the bill –– backed by Congressional heavyweights like Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), President Trump is expected to sign the bill into law once it also passes the U.S. Senate with similar bipartisan vigour.
On Beijing’s attempts to censor the internet, the Trump administration laudably finds itself in agreement with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, and the Committee to Protect Journalists. Back in August, these organisations and a dozen other international groups had penned a joint-letter urging Google CEO Sundar Pichai to cancel the development of the “Dragonfly” –– a censored search engine app for China. Reportedly, the Trump administration is also now coaxing Google to end its development of the app which it believes will “strengthen (Chinese) Communist Party censorship and compromise the privacy of Chinese customers”.
On China’s stifling of democratic movements, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently delivered a direct rebuke. On the banning of the pro-independence Hong Kong National Party, Pompeo deemed the freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, and association to be “the core values we share with Hong Kong, and that must be vigorously protected.” Incidentally, this denunciation followed China’s refusal of a port call (slated for October) in Hong Kong by the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp. According to a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, the same was purportedly refused “in accordance with the doctrine of sovereignty and specific situation.”
Finally, the Trump administration is also reportedly mulling over the idea of imposing sanctions against Chinese senior officials and companies in view of Beijing’s detention of minority Muslims in Xinjiang.
Thus, in now pursuing its “great power competition” policy vis-à-vis China, the Trump administration seems poised to reinstate China’s record on socio-poltical freedoms –– in addition to U.S. concerns over Chinese trade practices and military assertiveness, as a major bone of contention.
This month, reports revealed the Trump administration is considering to spur the United States’ withdrawal from the World Trade Organisation (WTO). According to reports, President Trump ordered his staffers to prepare a draft legislation that would essentially nullify the United States’ commitment to WTO rules. Apparently, the President was briefed on the resultant draft legislation – titled the “United States Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Act”, in late May. Although the chances of such a legislation going through the US Congress are slim, the withdrawal would come at the heels of Trump administration’s withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council last month.
The same was the latest in the Trump administration’s list of exercising US “exemptionalism” – the other prominent US withdrawals being from the Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA) and the Paris Climate Agreement. In addition to the evident motivation of undoing his predecessor’s legacy, one may argue that President Trump’s adoption of “exemptionalism” does not really constitute an overt departure in US foreign policy. This untoward tradition of US foreign policy is often defined as the United States’ unwillingness to be “bound by multilateral regimes and agreements to the same extent as other states.” Some prominent historical examples of which are, the United States having the dubious distinction of being one of the few holdouts from critical multilateral fora such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
In many of these cases, the rationale behind not having America bound by such multilateral engagements pertain to a strong belief in American Exceptionalism. For instance, in case of CEDAW, a report by the US Congressional Research Service noted one of the leading arguments presented by its naysayers to be the view that the United States is “already an international leader in promoting and protecting women’s rights.”
In other cases, administrations have often justified their exercise in “exemptionalism” with allegations of multilateral agreements “undercutting” American sovereignty. A notable example of the same, is the George W. Bush administration’s move to scuttle the Kyoto protocol. Similarly, the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement bore resemblances to this brand of “exemptionalism” that derides multilateral arrangement’s impingement of American sovereignty.
However, under the real-estate mogul turned US Commander-in-Chief, another brand of US “exemptionalism” seems to be coming to the fore. Recent developments – the ‘G6 plus Trump’ debacle and the pageantry-filled Trump-Kim summit in Singapore, indicate President Trump to be lobbing systematic blows to the institutionalised dictums of US foreign policy. Simply put, the Trump brand of US exemptionalism goes one step further than usual to pursue a systematic dismemberment of the US-led world order.
Under President Trump, the United States seems to adopting an unprecedented antagonistic stance against the institutions, commitments, and unpronounced precedents alike, of the liberal world order that the US itself put in place in the aftermath of the Second World War. In fact, so grave is this emerging Trump brand of “exemptionalism” that a recent opinion piece in The New York Times declared the Trump administration to be ready to “pull down the liberal order, with America at its helm, that remains the best guarantor of world peace humanity has ever known. We are entering a new, terrifying era.” Meanwhile, The Economist with its cover story – with Trump sitting atop planet earth riding it as a wrecking ball, issued a warning against the consequences of Trump’s “demolition theory of foreign policy.”
Consider last month’s G7 summit. The same was a nail-biting event for foreign policy watchers – not because contentious global governance issues like climate change were on the agenda, but because the President of the United States engaged in proverbial fist fights with some of America’s oldest allies. Captured for posterity in the photograph that went viral, other members of the G7 grouping were reported to have had a trying time warning a petulant US president about the perils of ‘America Alone’. At the summit, not only did Trump raise the specter of a trade war with America’s allies, he also – to the collective reverberating gasps of US foreign policy elites – argued for Russia to be readmitted into the grouping. Lastly, the American president accused allies of using the US as “a piggy bank everyone is robbing”, and flip-flopped over the United States signing the final summit communiqué underscoring the grouping’s collective commitment to oversee a “rules-based international order.”
Shortly thereafter, an unnamed senior Trump administration official reportedly surmised the ‘Trump Doctrine’ as “We’re America, Bitch!” Another administration official tugged on that idea to underscore the same as, “The president believes that we’re America, and people can take it or leave it.” Such is the emerging Trump brand of American “exemptionalism” – one so intoxicated on American economic and military primacy, that it counter-intuitively involves pursuing policies that “undermine the Western alliance, empower Russia and China, and demoralise freedom-seeking people around the world.”
The above assessment holds water in view of the relevance of the American “Internationalist” tradition in the post-Second World War era. The tradition’s mainstay being the crafting of an international order thriving on “free trade, multilateral cooperation, a global alliance network, and the promotion of democratic values.” Certainly this order – pushing economic interdependence under the guise of “globalisation” – remained Washington-led in terms of the US dollar underpinning the global financial system and concrete American security commitments keeping a lid on historical rivalries spanning from Western Europe to East Asia.
Most importantly, the same also produced unprecedented prosperity beyond American pocketbooks. A striking fact in support of that assertion is, “in 1981, 44% of the world’s population was living in extreme poverty. Today it’s 10%.” However, the egregiously named ‘Trump Doctrine’ of “We’re America, Bitch!”, involves adopting American “exemptionalism” even with respect to this “internationalist” tradition.
It is key to note, if deterrence is in the eye of the adversary, then Trump’s repeated open derision of US allies sets dangerous precedents. This is not to say that, all outstanding issues between America and her allies persist baselessly. However, adopting an overly confrontational predisposition against US allies and partners may encourage nation-states hostile to the US-led order to call the bluff on America’s oft-stated “iron-clad” commitment to her allies. The ramifications of which wouldn’t just mean instability in a said region, but a barrel-roll effect on the prosperity and security of the world — spurring ramifications that will not stop at border controls. A case in point is the recent dip in the Indian Rupee spurred by fears of a prospective “full-blown US-China trade war.”
Further, far from gaining any concrete steps towards North Korea’s “Complete, Verifiable, Irreversible” denuclearisation, President Trump’s highly anticipated summit with Kim Jong Un reflected more of the aforementioned Trump brand of American “Exemptionalism”. Amidst all the pageantry of the summit, President Trump lobbed another systematic blow to America’s preeminence in the region. Not only did Trump announce the cancellation of long-standing military exercises with Seoul and indirectly doubted the rationale behind stationing US troops in the region, but he also did so whilst adopting the North Korean rhetoric of referring to them as “provocative” and “war games”. Subsequent analyses of China being the “big winner” of this outcome of the summit hold credence in view of any possible downsizing of the US-led ‘hub & spokes’ alliance system in the Asia-Pacific being compatible with China’s assertive ambitions in the region.
More importantly, the announcement of the cancellation coming to the horrid surprise of the South Koreans (and the Pentagon!) is sure to raise doubts about the United States’ credibility as a security partner – especially in the eyes of newly-developing American partners like India.
In summation, it can be argued, just as Trump has hijacked the US Republican Party and hauled it further to the right with greater emphases on the politics of the “other”, on matters pertaining to US foreign policy too, Trump seems to be pursuing steps that may overtime consolidate an American worldview underpinned with zero-sum instincts.
However, the irony remains that, by practicing American “exemptionalism” over the United States’ post-Second World War role of underwriting the world order in search for “fair” or rectifying “bad” deals or mere symbolic political “wins”, President Trump is somewhat eulogising Washington’s own influence. Sustained for roughly three-quarters of a century, the same today seems to be inching towards its poetic erosion – recently surmised in the Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland’s statement, “… if history tells us one thing, it is that no one nation’s pre-eminence is eternal.”