Do not allow Donald Trump to play India, warns Jeffrey Sachs

In multiple conversations in New Delhi, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, a renowned economist and former advisor to several countries and the UN, advised India to have normal relations with China.

Without naming of Indian commerce minister Piyush Goyal, Prof Sachs said he was taken aback by the minister’s statement blaming China and not Donald Trump for the trade war unleashed by the United States.

By saying that it is all China’s fault, India was speaking the language of Donald Trump, he said — and India would do well not to expect too much from President Trump. Do not count on the United States, was his blunt advice.

India and China together, with 40 per cent of the world’s population, should have friendly relations, he urged. “I know the two countries have issues, but the hostility for China that I find here is not helpful or beneficial to either country,” he said. India must appreciate that China has done very well economically and is going to play a huge role in the rest of the century.

Counting Donald Trump as a friend of India and framing China as an enemy because Trump hates China and would be happy if India badmouths China, he quipped, is a mistake.

Donald Trump has only one ‘big love’, and that is Donald Trump. By dragging its feet on BRICS and the alternative payment system, which could have steered its economy away from the US dollar as the reserve currency, India had made another mistake, he felt.

Americans cannot accept the fact that China is catching up and is all set to replace the US as a great power, he stressed — which is why they hate China. But India has far more to gain by having friendly relations with China.

By all means have good relations with the United States, with Russia, with the African countries too, he said — but also with China.

China is a major trading partner today to 150 countries in the world. A global success story, China in the past decades has tried to be a responsible power with a stabilising influence. By attacking and provoking China, President Trump has left it with no other option but to adopt a more pro-active and aggressive stand, however.

China, Prof Sachs said, is not naïve and has slowly been reducing its dollar reserves and its export dependence on the US. It has seen how the US has unilaterally frozen Russian assets, grabbed Iran’s assets as well as the assets of Venezuela and North Korea. One of China’s priorities now will be to push for an alternate, non-dollar payment system to prevent unilateral US action.

As a parting shot, he warned, “Do not count on a breakthrough in trade negotiations with the US. Trump is an economic illiterate and his idea is to bring back manufacturing into the United States.

“He has already disrupted carefully crafted global supply and value chains and he certainly has no intention to allow India to replace China as supplier of goods to the United States.’