New York, Nov. 9: America began a new journey last night without knowing where and how it will end.

Donald Trump was elected convincingly as the 45th President of the US in the early hours of this morning by literally turning on its head another turning point in history: the date of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York – 9/11 in 2001 – being replaced by 11/9 in 2016 – today – when voters reinterpreted American politics.

Anger that one in seven Americans are now forced to resort to food stamps so that they do not go hungry to bed every night; frustration that this month many Americans saw their annual premiums for “Obamacare” medical insurance policies jump 25 to 100 per cent, depending on their state, and other similar contractions of the “American dream” turned the presidential election into an upset victory for Trump.

As Trump’s transition team sits down with the President-elect in the coming days to “make America great again” – his campaign slogan – domestic policy is expected to be the next administration’s top priority.

“We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals. We are going to rebuild our infrastructure…. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it,” Trump said in his victory speech at the midtown Hilton hotel here, the same spot where Ronald Reagan had announced his candidacy in 1979 to be US President.

“We have a great economic plan. We will double our growth and have the strongest economy anywhere in the world. At the same time, we will get along with all other nations willing to get along with us. We will have great relationships. We expect to have great, great relationships,” he promised in the first peek into his foreign policy as President-elect.

“I want to tell the world community that while we will always put America’s interests first, we will deal fairly with everyone, with everyone. All people and all other nations. We will seek common ground, not hostility; partnership, not conflict.”

The Levant, because it has become the fountainhead of terrorism that threatens US global interests and America’s western allies through the Islamic State and al Qaida, and Washington’s own backyard of Latin America, because of illegal immigration, are the likely foreign policy priorities for an incoming Trump administration.

In Asia, it is China which will be the top focus of the President-elect and his foreign policy team. On his campaign trail, Trump had repeatedly railed at China for its trade policies, currency manipulation and hegemony in Asia, challenging US primacy in the region. His voters will, therefore, expect the new President to live up to his promises to stop China from taking away American jobs.

In the short run at least, India will not be at the top of his agenda. But if Trump lives by his words in the last one year, New Delhi will not find comfort in his administration’s economic policies, which, of course, are yet to be fleshed out in full detail.

It is reasonable to assume that his economic czars will clash with New Delhi on visa fees, especially for Indian technology workers travelling to the US on short- and medium-term work assignments. There is also scope for tensions on limitations Trump will want on H-1B and L-1 visas on which thousands of Indians now work in America.

Already, differences on trade policy, intellectual property rights, market access and ease of investment in India have been sore points in bilateral negotiations in an otherwise vibrant Indo-US relationship under Barack Obama’s administration. Given Trump’s brand of economic nationalism and his penchant for putting America first, these tensions are bound to escalate with New Delhi.

Trump, from accounts by his associates, mostly in business, sets more store by temperament than by substance. Temperamentally, he is well disposed towards India. He has even shown a willingness to be economical with the truth in putting the best face on his preference for India.

During his third presidential debate with Hillary Clinton last month, Trump suo motu said in reply to a question about growth that “I just left some high representatives of India. They are growing at eight per cent. China is growing at seven per cent…. We are growing, our last report came out and it is right around the one per cent level and I think it is going down.”

I made extensive enquiries about the “high representatives of India” that Trump claimed to have met just before the debate. The Trump campaign could throw no light on any such meeting. Nor could the Indian American community or Indian officials.

One Indian American joked that Trump was mistaking Bollywood stars he met at a Hindu event in New Jersey for high representatives of India. The point, however, has not been lost on anyone here that Trump is obviously keen to put the best face on his attitude towards India.

In the end his approach to New Delhi will be shaped by the Narendra Modi government’s responses to where India can contribute to or fit in with the Trump White House’s larger national security interests in Asia and its stake in the Indian economy.

India’s firewall against the possibility of any Trump excesses in dealings with New Delhi will be a new phalanx of Indian Americans elected last night to both chambers of the US Congress. As expected, California’s attorney-general Kamala Harris, whose mother was an oncologist from Chennai, created history for the Indian American community as the first person of Indian origin to be elected to the Senate.

In the House of Representatives, against the lone Indian American in the outgoing House, Pramila Jayapal, who was born into a Nair family from Kerala, became the first Indian American woman to be elected to this chamber even as she will be joined by new members Ro Khanna and Raja Krishnamoorthi.

The Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans is the largest caucus on Capitol Hill and has advanced the cause of friendship with India often a step ahead of the administration. It is expected that such a practice will continue in the next Congress and will influence the Trump administration’s own agenda for India.

(The Telegraph)