There are no flashy events but we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the rebooted India-US rela­tionship this week. Ironically, it was the Pokhran nuclear tests of May 1998 that started India and US on a journey of rediscovering each other, initially through the long walks that Jaswant Singh and Strobe Talbott took together. Here is a small sampler of the distance we have travelled - in 1998, the US was taking India to the cleaners, piling nuclear and tech sanctions on us. In 2018, US energy secretary was telling a Delhi audience to do the smart thing and take the "world's best" nuclear reactors from the US. From the first Firefinder radars in 2001, India is closing in on armed Predator drones from the US.

A defence and strategic relationship developed quickly between New Delhi and Washington, capped by Manmohan Singh's landmark nuclear deal. Conver­gences in strategic and security outlook forged by the need to balance China's rise and check Pakistan's terror instincts also brought the two countries together, sweetened by India's rise as a technology power and Indian Ameri­cans' amazing successes.

The trade relationship was always a laggard, but it was subsumed by every­thing else. Indian officials and govern­ment leaders' favourite line to the US was, and remains - look at our trade in the context of the larger relationship. That line just went past its sell-by date. Donald Trump does not find it incompa­tible to have a robust strategic relation­ship with India while simultaneously hitting India on the trade front. So, as Sushma Swaraj and Nirmala Sitharaman prepare for the "2+2" talks with Mike Pompeo and James Mattis, this tried and tested Indian whine is not likely to get much traction.

On April 13, USTR announced it would review India's eligibility under the General System of Preferences. India is already on the priority watch list in the Super 301 report for IPR 'violations'; foreign exchange policies are under the scanner, and it has been dragged to the WTO on export subsidies.

On export subsidies, India has a thin case. It should have foreseen trouble when it crossed the $1000 threshold and moved to make changes. Now it is doing so in haste and under pressure, never a good idea. On the trade deficit front, India has a much better argument - this is a growing trade relationship, India's rising buy of oil and gas from the US by itself has a salutary effect on the trade numbers, as does its promised buy of civilian aircraft. But by and large, if India is seen to be a reliable centre for technology innovation and protection, New Delhi has an opportunity to ride this storm. The very fact that the US is hitting India via the WTO is a sign that they don't want to go down a unilateral path, while giving India time to make adjustments.

A bigger problem on the horizon is Russia-sized, as India comes under the radar of CAATSA (Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act). The simple issue here is if India buys the S-400 missile interceptors from Russia, or anything which would qualify as "significant transaction", the US could use this law to slap sanctions on India. Just this threat will have an instant blowback on all US defence companies seeking to sell here. India has been diver­sifying its weapons buys not because of US threats but because it's in India's interest. That's the way it should remain.

Trump is also expected to toss the Iran nuclear deal into the Straits of Hormuz, potentially affecting India's prized invest­ment in Chabahar port. But here India has an easy strategic point - Chabahar is good for Afghanistan, that's good for both of us. At least with the Trump administration, India doesn't have to re-invent the wheel on Pakistan - as we saw most recently during the FATF negotiations, when US, India and even China lined up to call Pakistan out on terrorism.

However, there is now a concerted effort by the US and Europe to drag the Taliban to the table and accept a peace offer by Ashraf Ghani in Afghanistan. This runs the risk of becoming a band-aid solution, a fig leaf for departing western troops from Afghanistan, leaving a target-oriented counter-terrorism operation in place. We would not be looking at peace, but a real possibility of Pakistan streng­thening its hold over Afghanistan in the coming years, because this plan does not involve shutting down the terror factory That would be terrible from the point of view of regional dynamics.

The US now defines its strategic interests a little more narrowly, so India would have to refine its game. The Modi-Xi dosti can exist alongside the Quad and the US-India, France-India relationships. India will position officials in US's Centcom base and fight with the US on trade. On the larger canvas, the strategic relationship with the US is seeing India playing a more decisive role in an evolving bipolarity taking shape in the world.

Courtesy: Times of India, Editorial, 5-5-2018.