- 5 minutes ago
This NewsTrack report examines the geopolitical implications for India following key political battles across Brazil, Israel, and the United States. In Brazil, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has secured another term, defeating Flavio Bolsonaro in a closely contested run-off election. The report highlights India's potential to deepen bilateral trade towards thirty billion dollars by 2030, strengthen BRICS cooperation, and champion reforms in international institutions. Meanwhile, in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces an electoral challenge from Gadi Eisenkot amid regional tensions involving Iran, though strategic defense and technology ties with New Delhi are expected to retain bipartisan backing. In the United States, upcoming midterm elections test Donald Trump and congressional control, potentially reshaping trade tariffs and H-1B visa policies. Panelists Felipe Ferrazu, Saul Satka, Alexander Slater, and Dr Tara Kartha analyse domestic polarisation, foreign interference perceptions, and diplomatic balancing strategies for New Delhi across these shifting global arenas.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Good evening, you're watching NewsTrack with me, Maria Shaquille.
00:03Three polls, three powers games and India in focus.
00:07From Brazil to Israel to the United States,
00:09political battles are unfolding that could have consequences far beyond their borders.
00:15While Lula has returned to power in Brazil,
00:17Netanyahu is facing a survival test in Israel.
00:20And in America, Donald Trump and the Democrats are facing a high-stakes battle.
00:25For India, the stakes go beyond who wins and who loses.
00:29New trade opportunities, strategic partnerships and tough diplomatic choices are all in play.
00:35Could Lula's return in Brazil open new doors for Indian businesses?
00:40Will Israel's political contest change the equation for New Delhi with Benjamin Netanyahu losing?
00:48If he loses.
00:50And could Trump's midterm test bring relief of fresh pressure for India?
00:56Three political battles, one key question.
00:59What will the results mean for India?
01:01Before I bring in the guests, here's a report.
01:08Three elections, three political battles and a world watching.
01:15From Latin America to West Asia to Washington,
01:19the coming days could redraw political equations
01:21with consequences that stretch all the way to New Delhi.
01:27In Brazil, Lula is back.
01:31Brazilian president Luis Lula da Silva has won another term,
01:37defeating Flavio Bolsonaro in a closely contested presidential run-off.
01:52For India, this is more than just an election result.
01:57Lula's win offers continuity in ties with Latin America's largest economy
02:02and an opportunity to deepen cooperation in BRICS,
02:06push for reforms in global institutions and expand trade.
02:10India and Brazil have set their sights on taking bilateral trade to $30 billion by 2030.
02:18The relationship between Brazil and India, it has to be very strong.
02:24We're the two largest democracies of the global south.
02:27And so we have to give good examples.
02:31And since my relationship with Prime Minister Modi is a very good relationship,
02:35it's very good.
02:36And I respect tremendously the governance of his administration.
02:42I am sure that he also respects my governance in Brazil.
02:45And so we have to take advantage of this moment to make things happen.
02:51Next is Israel.
02:53Israelis vote as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
02:56faces a major challenge from former military chief Gadi Eisenkot.
03:03For India, the stakes are strategic.
03:06Defence, intelligence, agriculture and technology
03:10have become key pillars of the India-Israel partnership.
03:15Large number of people whomsoever I spoke to
03:19clearly say that as far as India-Israel strategic partnership is concerned,
03:24there is a positivity.
03:25There is not going to be any impact.
03:27India enjoys a bipartisan support in Israel.
03:31The bigger question is, what happens next in West Asia?
03:35Any escalation involving Iran could threaten energy supplies,
03:40disrupt trade routes and complicate India's balancing act between Israel, Iran and the Gulf countries.
03:48And then, Washington, where Donald Trump faces a big test.
03:53The U.S. midterm elections on November 3rd could reshape control of Congress
03:57and President Donald Trump's ability to push his domestic agenda.
04:03For India, this is not just about who wins seats.
04:07Midterms matter because they can affect trade, jobs, the economy and relations between the two countries.
04:16Changes in U.S. policies on tariffs and H-1B visas can impact Indian businesses and professionals working in America.
04:27If Democrats gain control of Congress, President Trump may face more opposition to his policies,
04:33while a Republican victory may make it easier for him to implement them.
04:39For India, the challenge is not just to respond to political changes abroad,
04:43but to turn them into opportunities at home, from Brazil to Israel to the United States.
04:50New Delhi must protect its interests, strengthen strategic partnerships and keep its economic targets on track.
04:58With Geetha Mohan and Pranayupadhyay, Bureau Report, India Today.
05:08Let me go straight to Brasilia in Brazil, where journalist Philippe Ferrazo is joining us.
05:16Philippe, appreciate your time.
05:17The numbers tell a remarkable story in your country.
05:21Lula went on from trailing by 2.2 million votes to winning by 4.4 million votes.
05:28Where precisely did that electoral turnaround come from?
05:35Yes, this was a remarkable overturn of the elections in Brazil, the presidential elections.
05:43This is historic.
05:44This has never happened before.
05:47It's never happened in Brazil.
05:49It's the very first time.
05:50And this outcome is happened mostly because of the reduction of abstention in Brazil during the first round and the
06:03second round.
06:03And also a mobilization of the supporters of President Lula in the streets and also in digital communication.
06:16This was the most impressive overturn that he made in his career.
06:24He's running now for the fourth term as president of Brazil.
06:30He's president-elect for the fourth time.
06:33And we may also conclude that he was able to reduce and diminish votes from the main opposition member, the
06:47candidate Flavio Bolsonaro,
06:50that has also lost votes in major areas of Brazil, in major cities, in urban areas, and also in the
07:01regions of Brazil, in the southeast of Brazil, and in the north of Brazil.
07:08Some crucial states of Brazil changed in main cities, such as Rio de Janeiro, that voted mostly in Flavio Bolsonaro
07:20in the first round.
07:21And now Lula won in Rio de Janeiro, for instance.
07:25That was a big difference and that made a difference because in that region, in the southeast of Brazil,
07:33states like Rio, Sao Paulo, and Minas Gerais, they concentrate their most populated areas and they have the most and
07:43the major numbers of electors.
07:46Let me bring in other guests who are joining us on the show.
07:49Saul Satka is a security analyst.
07:51Joining me from Tel Aviv, Alexander Slater, former managing director of the U.S.-India Business Council.
07:57He's joining me from Washington, D.C.
07:59Dr. Tara Kartha, strategic affairs expert, joining me from here in India.
08:04I'm going to begin with you, Saul Satka, because, of course, the elections will be held in Israel tomorrow.
08:14That's an election again, which is being watched by one and all.
08:18So, help us understand, is this an election that could fundamentally change Israel's politics?
08:28Is it about the man himself?
08:32Is it the election about Benjamin Netanyahu's political future?
08:37Or is this an election which will decide the direction of how the country engages with the world outside?
08:47Well, no, not really.
08:48It certainly won't make much difference for Netanyahu's political future, since Netanyahu is nearly 80 years old.
08:54So, if he would win, he would be on his way out fairly soon anyway from his political career, realistically.
08:59So, it doesn't really make that much difference as far as that's concerned.
09:02And for the country itself, well, the people standing opposite him are centre-to-centre-right.
09:08They would be a centre-to-centre-right government replacing a right-wing government.
09:12It wouldn't really make much difference to how they face the world.
09:14And certainly, you couldn't really put a piece of paper between the opposition, who would form a government in theory,
09:21if they would outdo Netanyahu in the election in Netanyahu, in terms of its relation to Gaza, to Hezbollah, or
09:28to the Iranian regime.
09:29All of them agree there's a complete consensus across the board within Israeli politics that all those people have to
09:35be Iranians.
09:38Alexander, you know, New Delhi has invested in a strong relationship with Washington.
09:45There is an unpredictable White House that India has been dealing with, particularly in the context of the trade deal.
09:52But American politics is becoming increasingly unpredictable.
09:55Could a mid-term setback for Donald Trump change the trajectory of India-U.S. ties on trade, tariffs, defence,
10:04technology?
10:05Or is the bipartisan strategic consensus on India strong enough to withstand all the domestic political turbulence, if any?
10:16Well, thanks for having me here today.
10:18It's wonderful to be able to discuss the question.
10:20Of course, the midterms are a week away here in the United States.
10:25And the polling shows that it's not looking good for the president and the president's party.
10:32In terms of the specific question, I don't think that there's much drift from where the Democratic Party was, and
10:42it's that look on India, from, let's say, the end of the Biden administration, where, as you said, there was
10:47a strong bipartisan consensus.
10:48And it certainly looked like, at the start of the Trump administration, that that would continue when Prime Minister Modi
10:55was in the United States in February, right after President Trump's inauguration.
11:01Of course, that changed, right, when there was this escalating trade tension between the two countries and rhetoric from the
11:09president's part and fallout from the confrontation between Pakistan and India in April.
11:16And so, a year ago, April, pardon me.
11:21And so, we find ourselves today in a place where, again, I think the Democratic consensus is very much on
11:27India, is very much the same as it was at the sort of halcyon days of the two countries.
11:33And it's really the Republicans where the wavering is taking place as part of a tougher trade stance towards India
11:40by the president.
11:43Dr. Tadakarta, let's look at the result which has come in already, which is Brazil.
11:49And Brazil has delivered a major political verdict with Lula's victory over Bolsonaro, even as the right retains a substantial
11:59electoral base.
12:00What does this tell us about the global contest between established political parties and the populist right?
12:07And what lessons do you think India should draw from the resilience of these political movements?
12:14That's an excellent question.
12:16I think it's also the margin, I think, is about 3 percent between the two of them, which shows there
12:24is a massive divide.
12:25Like you said, there is very little give between these, you know, these two parties.
12:30And I think there's going to be a challenge.
12:31I hope there's no, you know, there's no further trouble down the line.
12:34But it's really, I find it so not strange, perhaps, perhaps it's inevitable that the causes that have led to
12:43the victory of one has pretty much is replicated across the elections elsewhere as well,
12:49barring Israel, in the protests in Europe, rising costs, etc.
12:53All that, you know, it's the same things that you see in every election.
12:57Everybody in the U.S., the main issue is about inflation, about rising costs, about government, lack of accountability of
13:05the government.
13:05So these, I think, are spreading not just in elections, but also in the protests that you see.
13:12It's the same issues, which is very interesting.
13:15Even, for example, in terms of climate change.
13:18Climate change is not directly part of the protests, but it's also part of the elections here.
13:23It's a very fundamental process.
13:25And, I mean, personally, I'm glad that President Lula has won, because under him, the rainforest at least is back.
13:31You know, it's again growing.
13:33I love that.
13:34But these are all extremely divisive issues.
13:38And going ahead, I don't think President Trump is going to be very happy with, you know, the whole Lula's
13:48win.
13:48Things are not looking good as we go along.
13:50But that thin margin, Maria, is what is worrying.
13:56That very, very thin margin between these two.
13:59Of course, it's a lot more than last time, but it's still a very thin margin.
14:04I'm going to take that question to Philippe, who continues to be with us from Brazil.
14:10And this is with regards to what was being discussed during the course of the campaign
14:14and also the allegation that came from President Lula's side,
14:20that there was some kind of support or some Trump administration support in favor of Bolsonaro's family.
14:27Was there a sense particularly among the electorate that the level playing field was being impacted?
14:34And how much do you see that perceived American interference in Brazil's democracy playing as a factor there?
14:42Perhaps swinging it in favor of President Lula.
14:45Also by the government, by President Lula, that he mentioned a lot of times, many times, very often, I would
14:56say,
14:56that there was ongoing American interference.
15:00Well, since last year, the U.S. policy towards Brazil was very tough in different areas of political relations with
15:10Brazil,
15:11commercial trade and tariffs also with India and with Brazil as well.
15:16And by political reasons, I mean, the U.S. administration, the Trump, Mr. Trump administration,
15:25argued that Brazil was doing a different policy towards dissidents, I mean, political dissidents,
15:38and that they should also participate in the elections.
15:42They tried to force Brazil to do business with the U.S., rather with China and to have more commercial
15:56advantages.
15:57All of this made the impression to Brazilian, to Brazilian the public, to the Brazilians as well,
16:06and to the government that there was a kind of American interference.
16:11It's very hard to say how this could impact the electoral outcome,
16:20but it's clear that the Lula's government made the sovereignty of Brazil one of his main flags during this campaign,
16:29and that in the end, we could see nationalism in the streets of Brazil,
16:35and that until this point, until now, at this moment, the U.S. administrations remained silent.
16:44And that was, this is also, we have to notice this, because this is not what happened
16:52when Mr. Trump won elections in the U.S. in 2024.
16:59Lula da Silva very quickly came public
17:06and recognized Mr. Trump's victory over Kamala Harris,
17:13who Lula was supporting.
17:16So, this is a different stance from the U.S. administration towards Brazil now.
17:23And, well, Brazil is watching all over the world,
17:30and even, I would say, that there is an important ongoing movement
17:36that local countries, the countries in our region,
17:41they are very linked to the U.S. and politically and ideologically,
17:47are recognizing mostly the outcome of Brazil's election, such as worldwide.
17:54Okay. Alexander, do you think that this kind of perception which has been generated,
17:59that the Trump administration is interfering in the internal matters of other countries?
18:07You know, it was very evident that the Trump administration was supporting the Bolsonaro family
18:14over President Lula, and that has not gone in his favor.
18:21Of course, you know, President Lula is back and how.
18:24Do you think that this will also become a talking point in the midterm polls?
18:30Given how it is being seen as a referendum on Donald Trump,
18:35the overall sense that he is trying to impact election outcomes in other countries?
18:45I don't.
18:46I think that the American public is very much focused on what's happening here in the United States.
18:51You know, President Trump is deeply unpopular,
18:53and when he has the lowest approval rating of any president at a midterm election schedule point in the last
19:0280 years.
19:03And so if you look at the reasons as to why Americans are unhappy with him,
19:10they cite things like affordability.
19:13Some folks are very upset with the immigration policy.
19:17Some folks are really upset with the way the economy is being handled and jobs.
19:22And other people are really talking about graft and what here is called grifting,
19:28effectively trading political influence off for private favors.
19:33And no one sort of really points to what's happening overseas and their efforts to impact foreign elections.
19:40But this is about his foreign policy.
19:43This is very much about what U.S. is doing with other countries or trying to do with other countries.
19:51Absolutely.
19:52At the same time, as I was going to say,
19:55that doesn't mean that President Trump himself is not a factor in other elections.
20:03Again, if you look at the polls, Americans are not citing foreign policy,
20:06aside from the war in Iran, as a reason for Trump's unpopularity.
20:11At the same time, if you look at how elections went in Canada and Australia,
20:16people were very mad at Trump and parties there that were not expected to win before his election won in
20:23landslides.
20:24And in Canada in particular, it fostered the election of Mark Carney,
20:28who effectively is leading the international charge against President Trump's trade policy.
20:32And so the efforts by the Trump administration to interfere in foreign elections,
20:37whether it's in Germany or Brazil, through support,
20:41or even in the recent Canadian referendum on independence by the province of Alberta,
20:48it's all backfired.
20:50And so it hasn't been successful.
20:52And so to the extent that it creates a negative aura around the sort of powerful image
21:01that President Trump wants to project to Americans, it has an impact.
21:04But again, I don't think that it's what people are voting on in the midterms.
21:07Okay. So, Al-Satka, how do you see the outcome shaping India-Israel intelligence sharing
21:16or, you know, defence cooperation or other areas of cooperation
21:21and the wider regional equation involving Iran and the Gulf?
21:26Well, certainly I don't see any impact realistically between whatever happens for the Israeli election.
21:32Whichever side wins, whether it's the centre-right that wins or the right that wins,
21:36the bonds between Israel and India are something that everyone agrees needs to be strengthened.
21:41There's really a bond of brotherhood between Israel and India.
21:44We have the same kind of enemies.
21:46We all know terror and we know how to fight it,
21:50as we saw earlier this month with the heroism on the Fly Dubai incident.
21:55And certainly we expect to see a growing relationship
21:58between the incredible 1.4 billion people of India and the 10 million people of Israel.
22:05We can share technology and various defence tech.
22:09And I really think that is certainly going to happen with whoever wins the election.
22:13Certainly there's a good personal relationship between Netanyahu and Modi.
22:17And no doubt that will continue whether he wins or not.
22:21But yet I'm sure that President Modi, Prime Minister Modi,
22:26who is absolutely a statesman of world-class calibre,
22:30will know how to do business with anyone that replaces Netanyahu
22:32if Netanyahu does not succeed in the coming election.
22:36Let me give the final word to the woman on the show.
22:39Dr. Tara Kartham,
22:40India, with Brazil's political direction,
22:44Israel's election and the U.S. midterms all in focus,
22:48India clearly is navigating a world where domestic politics increasingly shapes foreign policy.
22:54How should New Delhi manage its relationships with Washington, Israel and Brasilia
23:00if these political shifts begin to pull their foreign policy priorities in different directions?
23:08You know, luckily the one good thing, Maria,
23:10is that our relationship, for example, with Israel, as the gentleman said,
23:14that remains no matter who comes, who goes.
23:17That's a very, very strong relationship.
23:19However, I would like the war to stop.
23:22We've just added 14,000 crores to our fertilizer subsidy alone.
23:2674,000 crores deficit because of the war.
23:29We need that war to stop no matter who's there.
23:32That is a given.
23:33In the U.S., I think it's not going to be a fundamental change.
23:37I mean, it will be, Trump will continue.
23:39I mean, nobody is going to, at least as far as I know,
23:43you can't really, technically speaking, you can't remove him or anything.
23:46So he continues.
23:47But some of those legislation is going to have a problem.
23:50I think that all that will definitely,
23:52I think the way the Pew research polls are showing,
23:54it seems like the Dems are going to have a run in the Congress.
23:59In Brazil, to be honest, the biggest challenge is that under President Lula,
24:05the amount of Chinese investment has gone up quite a bit.
24:09We are talking of $6 billion last year.
24:11I don't have the latest figures.
24:13So that was a challenge.
24:15Then it's a challenge now.
24:16So essentially what I'm saying is,
24:18it's pretty much, barring the U.S., where anything could happen and does,
24:22the rest of it is handling things as we go.
24:26And I think we've been fairly fleet-footed as of now.
24:31We've managed pretty well.
24:33And let's see where this goes.
24:35All right.
24:36And Dr. Tara Kartha will continue to be on our shows over the next few days.
24:40So really appreciate your time.
24:42So also, Alexander Slatter, Philippe and Dr. Kartha,
24:45I appreciate your time.
24:46Thank you for joining us on this broadcast.
24:48That's all from me.
24:49Thanks so much.