Biden’s take on India’s economy is both bizarre and bothersome

livemint.com:

blamed “xenophobia" for stalling economic growth in Japan, China and India. His comment will be read with a lot of surprise, especially in India, as will his characterisation of India’s economic growth as “stalling", and clubbing it with the decidedly slow-growth club of China and Japan. Biden made the comment at a fundraising event for his 2024 re-election campaign, so it could be argued that it was for a domestic audience.

But it is impossible for any US President to say something like this about other nations and expect it to be ignored outside America. India prides itself on inclusivity, having pitched for it strongly with the motto of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ (the world is a family) at last year’s G20 summit. China stridently opposed this theme before it was included in the Leaders Declaration, of which Biden was a signatory.

The sudden discovery of xenophobia in the signatory countries – including India, China, Russia and Japan – less than a year later is indeed puzzling. For the US to club India with China on this is even more annoying. Also read: Indian economy’s report card moving away from the red: Mint tracker India prides itself as the fastest-growing major economy and to have that repudiated by the US President, even for a domestic audience, rankles.

Both the World Bank and the IMF, not to mention scores of investment banks, have upgraded their projections of India’s growth rate not only this year but well into the decade. While there’s no denying that New Delhi has a lot of policy reform to conduct in sectors such as power, tax, land and labour to keep attracting foreign capital, xenophobia is surely not a concern. Biden’s comment was particularly in reference to immigration.