India, US struggling to bridge trade dispute as Trump visits

Modi puts a high value on a strategic partnership with the United States, especially in the face of an increasingly assertive China. For that reason, he may be willing to make trade concessions for stronger ties with Washington.

That's right. India will make a deal that doesn't screw the U.S. because that's the only kind of deal they're going to get with Trump.

Barring some last-minute dramatics — always possible with the Trump White House — a U.S.-India trade pact is months away, if not longer.

Hopefully it will be a pact benefitting both nations. Regardless what's done, regardless how well this serves US interests, Trump will use it as another opportunity to pat himself on the back and claim it was the greatest trade pact ever. A real shame having such a dishonest leader.

Trump's also going to have to catch up with Russia while its Eurasian Economic Union continues its global expansion.

Russia pulls India closer with oil and weapons

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Russia-pulls-India-closer-with-oil-and-weapons

Hopefully it will be a pact benefitting both nations

If USMCA, Japan and China deals are any indication, it will be.

Trump will use it as another opportunity to pat himself on the back and claim it was the greatest trade pact ever. A real shame having such a dishonest leader.

Dishonest leaders were Clinton, Bush and Obama who allowed China to take our manufacturing base away from us. Trump's rectifying that.

The point to all this is that the entire world needed and must adjust to the changing world environemnt from transportation, communication and technology to political and economic needs and conditions. The key to which in the international scale, "fairness" and "mutual benefit" without harming each other by taking sly and dishonest advantage which ruin the other party is important in adjusting to those changes.

Indiaa has a totally differenmt economic, social, political and cultural environment and needs compared to China, Canada and Mexico. The negotiations cannot be the same. The results cannot be the same. To expect the same or similar is to begin with may be a mistake. Just as to expect the negotiations to be quick and easy is a mistake.

For now, the failure to reach a deal, despite the pressure of an approaching summit, may reflect not so much the differences between Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the similarities. Both men are fierce nationalists who favor protecting their own producers over opening their markets to foreign competition.

Regarded as a business reformer when he took office in 2014, Modi has increasingly turned protectionist, matching Trump’s “America First” example with “India First” policies of his own.

“U.S. behavior on the trade front has pushed India in the opposite direction of where we could like it to go,’’ Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told reporters Friday.

But Sadanand Dhume, resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said he was discouraged by the failure of negotiators to reach a modest, confidence-building deal before the Trump-Modi summit.

“The ambitions were small to begin with,’’ Dhume said. “If a presidential visit cannot force these two countries to get over a small speed bump, that really does not augur well’’ for a more ambitious trade agreement.

India First or WTO rules