As a crisis unfolded between India and Pakistan after the April 22 Pahalgam attack that killed 26 Hindu tourists, US President Donald Trump made a few statements. Both India and Pakistan reacted to these statements that denote their respective foreign policies and thus the thoughts of their leadership.
However, there could be a few lessons to reflect from this scenario–from how Trump communicated during this time of crisis and the statements he made. It gives not only a peep into how Trump thinks but more importantly about how he negotiates and adheres to his goals. Trump is actually a very astute leader. And studying his style of communication and leadership can help Indian watchers reflect on how we are and how we’ll negotiate with him for an India-US trade deal which Indian Commerce and Industry minister Piyush Goyal will lead in Washington in a few days.
Here’s an analysis of each of the statements Trump made:
Trump made his first statement on the recent crisis immediately after the Pahalgam attack. Trump said, “I am very close to India, and I’m very close to Pakistan, and they’ve had that fight for a thousand years in Kashmir.”
Some media said Trump has ‘exaggerated’ the India-Pakistan conflict, some called it ‘Trump’s ramblings’—however Trump was actually practicing the assertiveness technique that’s called “fogging” on negotiation tables. By adding a “thousand years” to the India-Pakistan conflict, Trump temporarily fogged the widely prevalent narrative of India and Pakistan fighting over Kashmir since the partition of the Indian sub-continent.
Instead he took it to civilizational times when the historic India started to face Islamic invasions from what’s today’s Middle East. Thousand years is a rough timeline but it worked because in both India and Pakistan, today there’s a widely prevalent discussion on their civilizational origins. While the conservative factions in India including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, BJP have increasingly looked into the civilizational narratives of Hindu civilization, Pakistani Islamists have widely promoted the anti-Indian civilizational narratives, adopting the nomenclature of the invaders.
It’s very visible in the way India has named it defense systems—for India’s Akash defense system and Brahmos missile—Pakistan has a Ghaznavi and Ghauri (names of Islamic invaders who started invading India roughly 1000 years ago). And Kashmir because of its location on the civilizational routes was always a civilizational flashpoint facing varied periods of peace and war in different eras.
So, in a way, Trump’s statements were true but less known to the global audience. By using it strategically Trump reduced confrontation from India and Pakistan while buying time to watch how things unfold between them and how each respond.
Trump made his second statement after India targeted nine terrorists’ camps.
“It’s a shame, we just heard about it,” Trump said at the White House, after the Modi government said it had hit “terrorist camps” inside Pakistan following a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir.
“I guess people knew something was going to happen based on the past. They’ve been fighting for many, many decades and centuries, actually, if you really think about it,” he added.
In a way Trump reiterated the first statement but again strategically modified it—he fogged it further by replacing “thousands” by “many decades and centuries”—this time he acknowledged the widely prevalent narrative of the origin of the India-Pakistan conflict in the 1947 partition of the Indian sub-continent but he repeated the civilizational narrative and lessened the exaggeration from “thousand years” to “centuries.”
By further saying, “I just hope it ends very quickly,” Trump didn’t side with either side and left it to open interpretation.
During this time as the conflict between India and Pakistan was escalating and after each side was firing on the other, Trump came back with another statement after the ceasefire was announced on May 10.
“I said, come on, we’re going to do a lot of trade with you guys. Let’s stop it. Let’s stop it. If you stop it, we’ll do a trade. If you don’t stop it, we’re not going to do any trade,’” Trump said.
“And all of a sudden, they said, I think we’re going to stop,” Trump said, crediting trade leverage for shaping both the nations’ choices. “For a lot of reasons, but trade is a big one,” he said.
Let’s analyse this statement in context of other things happening concurrently: During this time, India-US, US-China trade talks were going on. By the time the ceasefire was announced US and China were negotiating to slash their stratospheric tariffs by 115 percentage in a 90-day trade truce. Both nations pledged to cut their broad, massive tariffs after 2-day weekend talks. US tariffs came to 30 percent from 145 percent, while China’s slashed to 10 percent from 125 percent, according to a joint statement.
On Saturday—Trump had also messaged on social media about the ceasefire that happened that day after four tense days of cross-border clashes. He said India and Pakistan agreed to a “full and immediate ceasefire”, brokered by the US. Later, he said in another post: “I will work with you both to see if, after a thousand years, a solution can be arrived at, concerning Kashmir.”
Trump again narrated the Kashmir issue to be civilizational while reducing confrontation by fogging he again highlighted the ‘trade centricity’ and ‘America first’ focus of his approach. This time he did so knowing well that his message is confrontational to Indian policy on Kashmir.
India obviously disagreed with Trump’s statements about the ceasefire happening because of the trade negotiations. Later India also disagreed with Trump’s offer for mediation on Kashmir. This is India’s long held policy and its messaging is certainly conducive to India’s emerging leadership. By rejecting Trump’s offer, India asserted its interests to Trump. This messaging by India should also be seen as a prelude to the upcoming trade negotiations between India and US from May 17 to May 20.
India’s military victory over Pakistan and Pakistan’s denial and counter to India’s claims will go on for long into the future but there’s no denying that India will soon become the third largest economy in the world after the US and China. India will offer a viable ‘multipolar world’ narrative to US’ ‘unipolar’ and China’s bipolar global order functionality that also governs their negotiations for the world they share between them.
To me Trump’s messaging is not worthy of criticism from India, rather it can offer us much to learn. It certainly reflects Trump’s astute leadership because all this while despite the India-Pakistan crisis he has remained focused on his ‘trade negotiation’ goals and his messaging has highlighted his negotiation and leadership skills to those who study political leadership.
Modi’s leadership on the other hand has been rightly asserting India’s global rise, particularly India’s economic rise. For the first time India’s messaging and military response on Kashmir is more assertive and aggressive than ever before and is certainly emboldened by where India is globally placed today. India-Pakistan narrative war on Kashmir will continue but India’s economic rise for the first time will add a more assertive Indian perspective to it.
India should start to fathom how its economic rise and its stronger, more palpable presence on the multilateral forums will impact the way the world talks to it about Kashmir. The world will likely keep using Kashmir to check India’s pulse rate and as a watcher I’ll keenly watch how Indian leadership evolves and responds in this context while keeping its goals in focus!
These are my reflections for India from Trump’s style of leadership and communication. India would obviously keep asserting itself in its own style and flavor! It’s the decade of India’s rise and both Modi and Trump know it.