What can India expect from POTUS?

As US president-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office today in Washington and moves into the Oval office, all the eyes would be glued on the White House and the inaugural speech of the new President of the US.

India has seen its relations improve with the US under the presidency of Barack Obama in a wide range of areas of mutual interest to both the countries. However, as Trump takes charge, there is trepidation amongst government officials, Indian business community and Indian expatriates in the US on how things will shape up in the months and years to come.

Donald Trump’s election has purely focused on the electoral rhetoric of ‘Making America Great Again’, by primarily focusing on bringing back jobs to the United States, cancelling trade blocks, building a wall on its border, stopping immigration, etc.

The protectionist stance adopted by Trump has been a big dampener on globalisation of the world economy by means of free trade, easy movement of labour, capital and technology, which the Trump administration looks to undermine.

In India, sectors like IT and pharma have looked nervously ever since the new president was elected. In the case of the IT sector, the US plans to increase H1-B visa fees and make it more difficult for Indian IT companies to send professionals on clients' projects.

Pharma companies too have faced the brunt of all the politics around drug pricing and scrapping of Obamacare which certainly helped many Indian pharma majors to augment their topline. Therefore, these two sectors are likely to remain in key focus, post Trump's assumption of office.

The direct impact of his policies would also be felt on India as well as global financial markets which would take cues from all the developments coming out of Washington DC.