India-US Deal: Three Takes

To nobody’s surprise, the Indo-US trade deal, announced in line with contemporary times in a blaze of hi-profile tweets by the highest offices in both countries, has generated significant sound and heat. Equally understandably, it’s the geopolitics of the deal that have attracted the most attention. This is especially true of its boundary condition, related to Russian oil trade, which was the source of an impasse for nearly six months.
But while it is tempting to look at political equations as the primary raison d’être of the deal, the reality is (at least for India) that economic math accounts for the largest consideration. And the complex geopolitical equation (involving US, Russia and India) is subsumed well within the economics.