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Mass organisations affiliated with various Left parties held protest rallies across the country against the visit of US President Donald trump. The parties alleged that the Narendra Modi government is succumbing to the US pressure and urged the Centre to not sign any agreements that will go against the interests of farmers in India.
Addressing a protest rally, Communist Party of India (CPI) General Secretary D Raja said the agreements on the table are against the interest of the poor. Raja added that the intention of the visit is the upcoming Presidential elections and urged the Centre to not allow a foreign dignitary to take political mileage from events in India.
A statement by the CPI(M) said the singular intention of the US administration is to further prise open Indian economy to boost the US corporate interest and thus help the re-election bid of Trump. “The US agenda will most adversely affect the interests of the Indian farmers, our agriculture and in particular the dairy and poultry sectors. USA allows its agribusiness to distort prices to outcompete local farmers in the developing countries with a subsidy of a whopping $867 billion,” the CPI(M) Polit Bureau said in a statement.
It said, “Trump wants India to remove the tariff barrier which serves as a policy tool to protect Indian farmers, food procurement for people’s food security and minimum support price to our farmers. This will destroy Indian agriculture and the livelihood of crores of our people.”
The party said that Trump is also targetting India’s healthcare sector which, at present, is a critical producer of affordable generic medicines. “USA now demands that India must remove the compulsory licensing for the benefit of mega US pharmaceutical corporations. The US corporate agenda on e-commerce is equally invasive which is trying to cajole India to sign the digital trade regime at WTO which would allow US big-tech to increase their control over the economy and the political process and facilitate free cross border data flows without compensation,” the party added.
“At the same time, the government must insist on US restrictive policy on H-1B visas which is adversely affecting Indian IT industry,” it said.
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