President Obama will bring back $10 billion in new trade deals with India, but will bolstered relations with the world's second-most populous country have a long-term impact on the sagging US economy? And is there is a hidden benefit for Israel in expanded US-India relations?
India is the world’s most populous democracy. The country maintains important strategic relations with Iran Russia and China all of which occupy critical places in Washington’s foreign policy concerns.
But Obama’s stinging rebuke in midterm elections and the looming difficulty the president is likely to face when trying to implement policy initiatives with a newly empowered Republican House of Representatives and a razor-thin Senate majority has clearly relegated politics to the cargo hold of Air Force One. Instead Obama’s thrust in India was clear from the time he landed in Mumbai on November 6: economic ties.
“Both sides will be looking for economic deals out of this trip” said Professor P. R. Kumaraswamy a professor of Middle East studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “Obama needs India to stimulate the American economy and to create jobs back home. That probably means we are looking at some large military deals.”
Kumaraswamy’s prediction was upheld by the announcement of $10 billion dollars in deals on the first day of the trip including the purchase of thirty-three Boeing 737 airplanes by India’s SpiceJet Airlines; another agreement between Boeing and the Indian military for ten C-17 transport aircraft; several major deals involving gas and steam turbines; and a plan for the Indian military to buy aircraft engines from General Electric. The White House says Obama’s visit to India will create 54000 new American jobs.
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