The G20 in India: the debt of poor countries on the table. And meanwhile Yellen is courting New Delhi in an anti-Beijing key

MILAN – On the table of the G20 which starts today, July 16, and will last until the 18th, there are issues such as the debt of poor countries that has gone under stress due to the rise in interest rates and the inflation of raw materials; India, the landlord, should also put on the agenda a crackdown on the taxes of multinationals in countries where they record excess profits. But behind the official meetings, the US Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, weaves the web of relationships to settle relations with New Delhi. And it is clear that it is an axis to be strengthened also as a weapon of weight in the balance of relations with Beijing.

Yellen is for the third time in nine months in India. And, ensure theapwill take advantage of the stay at Gandhinagar along with fellow finance ministers and central bankers to oil his country’s relationship with India itself. In his program, which is not far from the Chinese visit, there is also a stop at Hanoi, Vietnamwhere many supply chains have roots and a difficult energy transition is on the agenda.

Yellen has a systemic interest in ensuring that shared debt restructuring mechanisms are reached for developing countries in difficulty (Sri Lanka and Ghana, for example), as well as in pushing for international development banks to work more perspective of combating climate change. Instead, there are reasons that directly concern the US in intensifying its visits to India.

It is a relationship that, at a time of tensions with China, Washington has a great interest in cultivating. Even though India has a close and enduring relationship with Russia, and has pulled out of ousting the Kremlin from the energy market.

In June, President Biden had already granted the honors of the White House to his counterpart Modi, launching trade agreements.

Moreover, the proximity of Yellen’s new visit to the Chinese tour to unfreeze relations with Xi leads relations expert Raymond Vickery Jr., of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to say that the Treasury secretary will be ‘interrogated’ with great curiosity from Indian officials on what were the outcomes of Yellen’s meetings in China, to understand if the US really has an interest in moving their activities and rewarding their country as – for example – already a giant like Apple is doing.

Hudson Institute senior fellow Harold W. Furchtgott-Roth added to the AP that Yellen’s trip to India “reflects an alliance that is naturally developing: India has many tensions with China ”, including border disputes, “ and wants to establish itself as a sort of naval power in the Indian Ocean, the same region that China also wants to develop”.