Former American President Donald Trump sound alarm bells across India’s multi-billion-dollar outsourcing industry whose largest customer is in the US, he has promised to end outsourcing if re-elected, Trump’s 2024 Republican Party Platform said “Stop outsourcing, and turn the United States into a manufacturing superpower” ahead of the party convention next week to anoint him as the party nominee for the White House, in his third run.
Trump Campaign’s 2024 Platform: America First Principles and Promises
Trump Campaign Senior Advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles says the platform is a list of 20 promises that articulate Trump’s “vision to Make America Great Again in a way that is concise and digestible for every voter”.
“While Joe Biden and Democrats opened the floodgates to migrant crime via wide-open borders, shackled American energy with red tape forced by Washington bureaucrats, and sewn chaos across the world through weak foreign policy, argue about who will be at the top of their ticket and have implemented policies that have raised prices on everyday families. President Trump will make America Great again through these America first principles.”
They covered promises to “seal the border”, conduct the largest ever deportation programme, “prevent World War Three”, tax cuts for workers, end inflation, build the strongest military in the world, bring peace to Europe and West Asia and keep the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. The platform was a mix of the party’s traditional agenda and populist measures.
The Impact of U.S. Policies on India’s Outsourcing Industry
The government and businesses of India will be distressed by the promise to end outsourcing, which will bring back memories of a slew of measures announced in Trump’s first term to hold back outsourcing and targeting of Indian companies that ruled the outsourcing industry in the US. The American companies use to make up for the shortage of workforce available locally for expertise jobs, the authority had targeted the H-1B visa programme.
A whopping 62% of India’s global outsourcing business comes from the US. Major American corporations like Ford Motors, Cisco, American Express, General Electrics, and Microsoft have all tapped into this resource. Interestingly, this comes despite criticisms from US presidents who have lamented the loss of manufacturing jobs due to outsourcing to countries with lower wages in a globalized economy.
During his 2020 election campaign, President Joe Biden proposed an Offshoring Tax Penalty, while former President Barack Obama often urged U.S. companies to repatriate outsourced jobs, warning them of tax penalties if they did not comply.
