To say that Donald Trump is an unconventional politician is arguably the understatement of the century. It’s rarely, if at all, that the world has seen an American President—the most powerful individual on planet earth—upending the global order in a manner that the resultant churn in geopolitics comes to be identified as a black swan moment.
Almost every country has been affected—including Trump’s own—and sacrificed at the altar of the tariffs to “Make America Great Again.” Or, as some will say, they have been left at the mercy of the whims and fancies of a modern-day potentate, who, to compound problems, tends to fulminate a lot—in public. If that ruptures the US’ relations with traditional allies like Canada, or inexorably damages the 21st century’s “most consequential” partnership—according to Joe Biden—with India, it’s of no concern to the new American Emperor.
Amid this, questions are being raised about the quality of advice the US President is getting on his policies. If media reports are to be believed, his tariff brainwave has been inspired by the economic theories of a controversial character called Peter Navarro, who created a fake economist named Ron Vara to justify his wild suppositions. An adviser on trade to President Trump, Navarro has gone a step ahead of his boss in abusing India, while building an alternate narrative where the Ukraine war is “Modi’s war” and Brahmins are exploiting poor Indians.
Then there is someone as competent as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who does not seem to have any say on US foreign policy, with his only contribution to India-US relations being a very weak mention of the importance of India as a strategic partner once Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached China to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
In the specific case of India-US relations, the Indian PM’s China visit and the photos of the leaders of India, Russia and China enjoying each other’s company seem to have rattled the US in particular, and some of this was evident in one of Mr Trump’s latest “Truths.” The US President posted a photo of the three leaders together and wrote, “Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest China,” and then sarcastically added, “may they have a long and prosperous future.”
Even before Indians could decide if the US President was sulking or issuing a threat, he changed his tone inside a few hours to say that “I will always be friends with Modi, he is a great Prime Minister… India and the United States have a special relationship. There is nothing to worry about… I don’t think we have (lost India).” But he also added that he did not like what the Indian PM was “doing now”—by which he was possibly referring to the SCO meeting.
Although the Indian Prime Minister responded positively to this, saying that he reciprocated the sentiments, the question uppermost on Indian minds is if the US President is looking for an off-ramp after escalating matters to unacceptable levels of hostility, or if this is just an aberration and sooner than later a hostile Truth directed at India will drop on his social media platform.
It is increasingly looking like that Donald Trump has underestimated India’s economic heft, its pride in its own sovereignty, its democracy, culture and civilisation, and its determination to protect its own interests, come what may. Trump had thought that by heaping insults and punishments, he would make India bend the knee, which did not happen. In addition, in American eyes, the US President has pushed an important partner country into the arms of Communist China, unnecessarily.
It is not known if Trump’s softening of tone has anything to do with all this, or if he has come under some unknown pressures domestically, but the softer tone at least has opened a tiny window of opportunity to get India-US relations back on track sometime in the future. But for that Trump has to put on leash his openly hostile advisers and secretaries, who keep heaping insults on India.
The latest to join the Peter Navarro bandwagon is Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who has boasted that India will say sorry to the US inside two months and then Trump will decide “how to deal with Modi.” He also ordered India to come out of BRICS and stop buying Russian oil, or else continue to face 50% tariffs—such is his sense of entitlement. Obviously, he is trying to please his boss.
Hence Mr Trump needs to understand that showering intemperate, insulting and hostile rhetoric on partners and allies is not the best way to conduct foreign policy—and this applies to him in particular. If he seriously means that India is a partner and is ready to make that a springboard from where India-US relations can take off, then he and his men need to mind their manners. But then no one knows if he will say something entirely different tomorrow.
