Trump no friend of India or Anyone

President Trump is taking credit for Hafeez Saeed’s latest arrest, tweeting that it was the result of a “ten year search” and that “great pressure has been exerted over the last two years to find him.

This is bullshit. Trump is well aware of this tactical groundwork done by the Pakis in preparation for the upcoming meeting between him and his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan. He is placating Pakistan as America needs its help as part of its plans to withdraw from Afghanistan by portraying some kind of stability there.

His action is in contrast to reports on Indian media about growing Indo-US relations and marginalization of Pakistan by the superpower. This is far from the truth, rather Washington is mollycoddling India's western neighbor - so much so that India was not invited to the coveted group of US, Russia, China and Pakistan, obviously due to the latter's insistence on not allowing India play any role in Afghanistan considered as Pakistan's backyard.

I am baffled by the vocal support Trump elicits among my fellow Indians. The so called Bonhomie between Modi and Trump (reportedly on Indian media, US media is cool to it) has remained on paper and photo ups, hardly transpiring on the ground. Neither Indo-US relation has taken any great stride under Trump administration, nor the US President has shown any great love or care about India beyond standard diplomatic rhetorics. So why so much one sided love for Trump, akin to Trump's love for Putin !!!

Trump loses no opportunity to bash India when it comes to outsourcing of IT jobs and restricting H1B Visa. All politics are local. With his reelection campaign commemcing Trump is leaving no stones unturned in blaming other nations including India for taking away jobs from the Americans. This rhetoric is expected to continue till November 2020. With China and Mexico having created dependency on US due to business and geographic utility, India is like GARIBA MAIPI SABURI SHAALI (The poor woman is every one's sister-in-law, simply meaning India is taken for granted by the United States).

Outsourcing is becoming deeply sensitive in the deep heartland of America and is going to be an issue in the 2020 Presidential Elections. It makes sense. Imagine our parents Jobs in Rourkela and Bhubaneswar being outsourced to Uganda or Turkmenistan. Units of Bhubaneswar and Sectors in Rourkela would have witnessed riots - not to forget hardly any dispensation to the ruling party.

Taking all the above into consideration I do not see any dramatic shift in forward gear of Indo - US relations, at least till end of the year 2020. If you look at the bigger picture, Americans are the real practitioners of realpolitik.

They give big speeches on Democracy, but have no qualms about baking bread with all tin pot dictators, from Marcos to Musharraf. Foreign policy is an extension of national interest where self interest, not ideology rules the roost. America will continue its self interest oriented foreign policy for unforeseenable future - the so called Modi, Trump chemistry not withstanding.