In June, US President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoyed a warm and productive meeting in Washington. The successful summit attested to the Trump administration’s keen desire to pick up where its predecessor left off and continue to strengthen a growing US-India partnership.
One of the lingering questions after the summit was who would be Washington’s next ambassador to Delhi – a position that has been vacant since Richard Verma departed in January. After all, if America truly values the importance of its relationship with India, then it really needs to have an envoy in place.
After several months of speculation, the White House on 1 September formally nominated Kenneth Juster to fill the post. Once he is confirmed by the US Senate, Washington will have its new man in New Delhi. Juster is a solid choice who can boost US-India relations in three distinct ways.
Impeccable Credentials
First, he knows India inside and out.
Juster held several senior positions on India during the George W Bush administration, a time when the foundations of the US-India strategic partnership were being laid out.
He was the US chair of the US-India High Technology Cooperation Group, and he helped develop a key policy blueprint called the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership. This was an effort that helped shape bilateral cooperation in the military, space, and nuclear spheres, and that set the stage for the US-India civil nuclear agreement. Juster was also involved in multiple bilateral negotiations with India.
For the US-India relationship to continue to make progress, it will need more than a good diplomat heading up the embassy in New Delhi. It will need an envoy with a deep understanding of the nuts and bolts of the partnership, its sources of strength, and its areas of weakness. Juster fits the bill.
A Fillip For Economic Ties
Second, Juster’s expertise largely lies in the realm of trade and economics. He served in the Commerce Department under Bush, and he was the second-in-command in Trump’s National Economic Council. He was also a partner at the private equity firm Warburg Pincus and a board member of the US-India Business Council.
This expertise could provide a fillip to the economic aspects of US-India relations, which have been overshadowed by the partnership’s rapidly growing defence ties. Economic relations have been the Achilles’ heel of the relationship in recent years; among other things, India’s protectionist tendencies in global trade negotiations exasperated US officials while corruption and red tape frustrated American investors.
Under the Trump administration, these economic tension points have intensified. America has now become the problematic protectionist partner and irritated India with its threats to rein in the H-1B visa program and its complaints about the $24 billion US trade deficit with India.
Despite these limitations, economic cooperation is clearly a priority. The Trump-Modi joint statement pledged to initiate a range of commercial collaborations, from expanding energy trade to increasing market access.
Juster, who unlike his boss in the White House is staunchly pro-trade and pro-globalisation, should be a big booster of such collaborations.
With Steven Bannon – a key voice for the isolationist, anti-trade wing of the White House – no longer in the picture, there’s reason to hope that the Trump administration will fully encourage Juster to promote economic cooperation from his perch in New Delhi.
Influence Within The White House
Third, Juster has the ear of the president. “Ken has a strong and positive relationship with everyone in the White House, including the president,” White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters said back in June.
While many US ambassadors have come from elsewhere in the State Department, Juster comes directly from the White House. When you are the deputy director of the president’s National Economic Council, as Juster was for several months before reportedly being pushed out in May – likely due to disagreements with anti-trade factions in the administration – you clearly have influence with the commander-in-chief.
This is good for India and for US-India relations especially at a time when the White House has curtailed the role of the State Department in US foreign policy.
Juster’s relationship with Trump suggests that he will have more influence within the White House than will many of his colleagues from within the US diplomatic and ambassadorial corps.
Too Good To Be True?
Cynics, thinking this all sounds too good to be true, may latch on to press coverage highlighting possible conflicts of interest for Juster. From October 2010 to January 2017, the ambassador-designate advised a firm, Warburg Pincus, which has dramatically ramped up its investments in Indian companies in recent years.
“There is a question of whether [Warburg’s increased investment in India] is related to the likelihood that Kenneth Juster, a former partner, is going to be nominated as US envoy to New Delhi”, an American ethics expert, Larry Noble, said back in June.
Warburg’s deals this year alone, according to the Daily Beast, include purchases of “sizable stakes” in three subsidiaries of the Tata Group, part of an insurance company co-owned by ICICI Bank, and investments in “India’s largest movie theater chain.”
The firm has invested in about 20 Indian companies since 2007, and this year pledged to invest almost $8 billion in capital in India over the next 10 years.
Juster will likely face questioning about all this at his Senate confirmation hearings, though it’s unlikely to imperil his actual confirmation. Once he arrives in India, the controversy will presumably pose a minor distraction at most for an envoy poised to help an already-strong US-India relationship grow even stronger.
Michael Kugelman is deputy director for the Asia Program and senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC.
(This was first published on BloombergQuint and has been republished with permission.)
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