Nicholas Burns has served in the U.S. government for 27 years and worked closely with several Presidents, Republican as well as Democratic. As Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2005 to 2008, he led negotiations on the India-U.S. Civil Nuclear Agreement. Currently a Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, he travels to India often, keenly follows developments and India-U.S. relations. As Donald Trump completes one year as President, he talks about the entire gamut of India-U.S. ties in the context of changing American priorities and how India is viewed by friends in America. Excerpts:
President Trump will complete his first year in office later this month. Has this first year been different from that of previous presidencies?
I think President Trump’s America First policy is a fundamental departure from 70 years of American foreign policy under both Republican and Democratic Presidents. It is a very negative departure. President Trump has weakened the U.S. and has taken us in the wrong direction. He is diminishing our commitment to some of our alliances. He has disavowed America’s traditional support for the World Trade Organisation, for big multilateral agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He has also turned his back on the existential basis of American society, which is that we are an immigrant nation. He wants to severely curtail immigration…. he has refused to take even a single Syrian refugee. He has put a travel ban on several countries, mainly Muslim. On these three structural areas — alliances, trade and immigration — he has turned his back on what Republicans and Democrats have supported for years. Besides, we have withdrawn from the Paris climate agreement, and we are the only country that is out of it now, and we are the second largest carbon emitter. Most importantly, the President appears to not see himself — as every American President since Franklin D. Roosevelt has seen himself — as the leader of the West, leader of a democratic alliance of countries, a supporter of democracy.
On alliances, the President has given conflicting signals though. He has said that the U.S. remains committed to its allies. So what do we take from this?
He has not been consistent. Every time he speaks up for South Korea or Japan… we have to remember that not long ago, he accused the South Korean government of appeasement of the North Korean government, in wanting to talk to them. Words matter. When you are the President of the U.S., you have to be consistent in conveying what you believe in. This President has not been consistent. He sees the world almost solely through the prism of trade and investment, and ignores the value of democracy and other strategic issues. This to me is a fundamental departure.
But in his speech in Poland last year he portrayed the U.S.-Europe partnership as a civilisational alliance. So he does have a view, albeit different from his predecessors, on the foundations of that relationship?
There is a crisis in Europe — the crisis is the rise of right wing populism. People like Marine Le Pen in France, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, some of the right-wing leaders in Poland are fundamentally anti-democratic leaders. They don’t believe in the kind of democracy that we believe in, or you in India believe in. What the President did in Warsaw last summer was to praise a government that is flirting with anti-democratic factions. It was misguided. This is the time when the American President must be standing with the truly democratic leaders. The President failed to convey what we stand for, what American values are.
The President also says that friends of America fooled all his predecessors…
I think it’s arrogant to say, as he repeatedly does, that all of his predecessors failed. I worked for every administration from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush, … I can say, they did their best. They were all good men. They all believed in our country. All of them made mistakes, we all do. But they advanced American interests significantly. To say that all that we did about alliances, refugees, trade treaties so far is wrong, ahistorical. It is grossly unfair for him to make that judgment.
But the President has done some things that are positive. I think he has been able to strengthen our relationship with some of the moderate Sunni Arab regimes in the Middle East. He certainly strengthened our relationship with Israel. His policy on North Korea, of trying to increase pressure on it, is good. The problem with this President is that even when he is correct, the verbal excess that comes with it is unconscionably offensive [in] that it erodes whatever good he is doing in policy.
The Trump administration is clear that its objective is to enhance hard power and it sees soft power as a waste of money. How is this impacting the State Department? How does this impact American standing in the world?
For countries like the U.S., India, Japan or France, soft power is very important. What makes India and the U.S. uniquely important in the world is our support for democracy, religious tolerance, human rights. This is what distinguishes us from China or Russia. As a leader you have to pay attention to both aspects of your power, hard and soft. The State Department is facing a threat of budget cuts, and to see the President and Secretary [of State] Rex Tillerson firing some of our senior career diplomats, not listening to them… it has been a painful year.
What is heartening to see is that both parties in Congress are standing up to the President and Secretary Tillerson in support of diplomats and diplomacy. Mr. Tillerson has not shown faith in our career diplomats. He has not shown support for them.
How do you see India’s role in the changing priorities of the U.S.?
Under President Trump India remains a significant priority for U.S. foreign policy. I think President Trump is continuing the policy of Presidents Bush and Obama. We all believe that the rise of India as a global power is in the interest of America. President Trump has appointed a very capable ambassador to India, and I have known Ken Juster for many years. I admire Ken, and he is a true expert on India. His going to India as ambassador is a very positive signal, and India is one of the success stories of the Trump administration. The continuation of our policy of close economic cooperation and much closer strategic partnership is good news. The strategic convergence between India and America that is underway for some time continues under President Trump. If you look at President Trump’s policies worldwide, one of the brightest spots has been his policy towards India.
What about his Pakistan policy?
There is a challenge with regards to Pakistan. He is right in calling out Pakistan for its support of terrorists. Realistically, we will also have to try and maintain a relationship with Pakistan. This is a very difficult balance to maintain. There is value in being clear to Pakistan publicly. I don’t think it is wise to drive that to a point where we don’t have the ability to have a continuous line of communication with Pakistan. India has the same interest. The situation in South Asia will be better if India and Pakistan are talking.
President Trump is an advocate of bilateral deals. Given that, how confident can India be in his ability to understand the Indo-Pacific as a strategic theatre?
The policy of any country must be consistent with its long-term interests. I think the policy of the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific is not going to change radically in the next several decades.
Our interest in the Indo-Pacific is to ensure that we are a power there, as you are (India), as Japan is, as China is… to maintain regional peace, to maintain free trade, to protect the rise of smaller countries. Aggressive Chinese military actions are a threat to this. Our interest is in aligning ourselves with India, Japan, Australia, Singapore. There are very few topics on which the Democrats and Republicans agree with each other, but one of them is relations with India.
India has been named very favourably by President Trump several times, but also very unfavourably many times in the past year, particularly in matters related to trade. How do we make sense of this?
Trade has been a difficult issue in India-U.S. relations for decades. It has been a difficult issue for President Bush, and I know that as I served as Under Secretary of State for him. It was very difficult for President Obama. The fact is that the U.S. sees some of India’s trade policies as very protectionist. That has not changed under this administration, and it is a commonly held view by the U.S. Congress and the last three U.S. administrations. The potential for conflict in the trade area is greater under this administration because President Trump’s views are much more aggressive, towards countries with which we have difficulties in trade, and much more aggressive on the issue of H-1B visas. It is important for us to watch the specific policy proposals related to these issues in 2018, and to deal with them constructively. We are fortunate that we have Ken Juster as ambassador in New Delhi, who understands these issues very well.
How do you assess the Modi government in India, which will be completing four years in office this year?
Mr. Modi has been a dynamic leader internationally. He has been successful in continuing with the fine work of his predecessors Manmohan Singh and A.B. Vajpayee. Looking at the growth of investment, efforts in improving infrastructure, efforts to fight corruption, there is much to admire about Mr. Modi. I am quite well aware that there are many problems in India; there are economic problems as there are successes. I will say this as a friend of India, as an admirer of India, one of the greatest strengths of India has been its religious tolerance and the fact that religious minorities in India, particularly Muslims, have full rights and full opportunities. There are aspects of Hindu nationalism that we have seen under this government that give many of India’s friends a concern. Particularly after 9/11 it was so remarkable that India’s Muslim community continued to succeed in business, politics, and there has been a relatively peaceful coexistence of the Hindu and Muslim communities. We have a similar problem in the U.S. by the way — under President Trump race relations have worsened. We are struggling to sustain the progress we made in race relations over 50 years. One of President Trump’s greatest mistakes has been to be a divisive leader on race. Friends of India want it to remain a country where people of all faiths can succeed.
What do you think Mr. Modi can do to ensure that is the case?
Obviously, in a democratic country, the role of the leader — the Prime Minister of India or the President of the U.S. — in trying to achieve social stability on historically difficult issues like race in the U.S. or Hindu-Muslim relations in India is critical. In a democracy we need leadership that heals social, racial and religious divisions. All societies need that leadership from the top.
