He highlighted factors like America’s strategic competition with China and the influence of the Indian American diaspora as key elements reinforcing this steady partnership, making significant fluctuations unlikely.
This is the verbatim transcript of the interview.
Q: It looks like key states such as Iowa and even North Carolina are leaning towards Republicans and Donald Trump right now. Iowa has been a big upset. So do you think now it’s a Trump victory that we are staring at?
A: It certainly increasingly looks like that’s likely. In fact, of the seven battleground states identified by most experts, Harris is leading in only one, and that is Nebraska, which doesn’t have a whole lot of electoral votes. North Carolina has already been declared by the Associated Press for Trump, which is a bit of a blow to the Democrats. And Iowa, as you rightly say, has already gone. So it doesn’t look very good.
But at the same time, you can only take a call when you get close to 90% of the precincts being counted, because in America, what happens is, that the less populated rural areas are counted first, and the more densely populated cities come in a bit late. Therefore very often, as we saw in 2020 the Democrats are able to turn the numbers around at the very last stages, in the heavily Democratic-leaning or liberal urban areas, their numbers come in towards the end of the count in pretty much every state. So that’s what we have to see.
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An overwhelmingly rural state is almost a given for Trump, and an overwhelmingly urban state like New York is considered a given for Harris. But in between, where you have got places like Pennsylvania, where the strong rural areas and a strong city area, I wouldn’t call it and then, certainly many of the news agencies are not calling it until they get close to over 90% of the votes counted, provided there is a bit of a gap there. Because if there is too small a gap, they won’t even call it at 90-91% – they will keep waiting. We saw this in 2020 when final results in three, or four states took a couple of days.
So we shouldn’t start writing the Kamala political obituaries until after…
Q: A lot at stake as far as India is concerned, give us both aspects. If Kamala Harris were to win, or if Donald Trump were to win, how is India going to be impacted? You are a very close foreign policy watcher, a Minister of State and external affairs, yourself in the past. So how do you feel how things will be impacted for India?
A: I am one of those who has always believed in the last 25 years or so that the relationship between India and the US has reached a stable level of bipartisan support on both sides that makes any major ructions or any major fluctuations rather unlikely. There are lots of fundamental reasons why they should be so, ranging from America’s strategic competition with China, the strong presence and influence of the Indian American diaspora and so on, amongst other things.
Now, having said this, it is also true that there are some differences. Trump, for example, is very tough on tariffs and trade. And he has also said that India has too high tariffs. And if India is going to have tariffs on America, America will have tariffs on India, that is going to be a particular challenge, because with tariffs, our exports to America will take a very bad blow.
A second area is he is strongly anti-immigration, and that might affect and that might tighten the number of possibilities, not just for the H1b visas that Indians want, but also for family reunions of those who have gone there, stayed on, become permanent residents, and want to get their families to join them.
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A third broad issue is that Trump is very transactional. He keeps wanting to know what is in it for me, what are you doing for me lately before I do anything for you? And that is something that India is going to have to reckon with. We can’t expect concessions.
You may remember the last time the Trump administration took India’s name off the list of those countries that had a preference for trading the GSP. If they do that kind of stuff, it is going to be much tougher for us with Trump.
The Biden administration hasn’t done that, Kamala Harris hasn’t done that. Kamala Harris, on the other hand, broadly speaking, is sympathetic to India, and visited India many times as a child. Her mother is Indian. She herself, therefore is half Indian – comfortable with her Indian name, comfortable with many Indian dishes. She’s got some affinities for our culture, which is very welcome.
Nonetheless, she is also from the Left wing of the Democratic Party and is bound to be fairly tough on some of the policies of the Narendra Modi government. So there are pros and cons with both candidates. Bottom line, I think we will be fine with whoever wins.
Q: What do you feel about the rise of the Right? Considering this election is so close, even in places like Pennsylvania, Trump is leading right now, though not projected a winner, but generally, what does this election say about the mood of the American population?
A: I am, to be honest, a bit surprised, because especially the last couple of weeks of the Trump campaign, the man was practically imploding, doing some bizarre things, saying some even more bizarre things, but appeals to a certain segment of the American population. I don’t think the educated elites, women, liberals, the people on the two coasts etc, have any sympathy for him and his style of politics.
But very clearly, the vast majority of the hinterland, the rural states, the Midwestern states, and the southern states, have stuck with him despite some of this erratic behaviour. And therefore, I think we are quite likely to see if – if Trump does seem to pull it off, as looks like the case so far, then it is going to be a lot of breast-beating on the side of the liberal elites around the country. Where do we go wrong? What happened etc.
I don’t think that the fundamental nature of the American system should surprise us very much. There are elements to all of this that will explain the results, but let us get the results first. We will talk about it later.
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