Now’s the Time for India to Make a Deal With U.S.
Indian trade negotiators should strike while the White House is looking for achievements to tout to farmers.
Wisconsin dairy farmers are a key constituency.
Photographer: Scott Olson/Getty Images
America’s elections provide a narrow window of opportunity for its trading partners. Across the world, negotiators will have seen a man from Maine given a prime spot at the Republican National Convention: Lobsterman Jason Joyce spoke about how President Donald Trump had “brokered a deal to end European Union tariffs of 8% on Maine live lobsters and up to 20% on Maine lobster products.” It is no coincidence that, in 2016, Trump won only one of Maine’s four electoral college seats.
Trump, behind in the polls, is desperately trying to moderate the effects of his poorly considered trade war on crucial voters. The world’s trade bureaucrats should have had pen in hand on the second day of the RNC: Miners, fishermen and farmers from states that Trump considers electorally important took turns in the spotlight. Figure out what they want, give the U.S. president something he imagines he can sell to them and you have an opportunity to get a quick deal through. That’s clearly what the EU had in mind when it signed a “mini trade deal” that, in return for a concession on lobsters, got the U.S. to commit to slashing a range of tariffs in half.