The Indian prime minister discovers that the world’s largest bully sees fawning as weak point.
President Donald Trump shakes palms with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi throughout a joint press convention in New Delhi on February 25, 2020.
(Prakash Singh / AFP through Getty Photos)
Donald Trump has created a brand new golden age of sycophancy. The White Home now resembles Versailles below the absolutist monarchs or Beijing’s Forbidden Metropolis below the emperors. CEOs and overseas leaders are lining as much as butter up the US president. On Thursday, Tim Prepare dinner, the CEO of Apple, presented Trump with precisely the type of shiny object that tickles his fancy: a glass plaque on a pure gold stand, which Prepare dinner described as “a novel unit of 1.” Whereas the plaque was little doubt an costly reward, it was a small worth to pay for preserving the special tariff exemptions that Trump has been giving to Apple. Due to Congress’s abdicating its constitutional obligation, Trump primarily has unilateral energy to set tariffs, and he makes use of this authority to threaten firms and nations. To stave off the president’s ire, they provide simpering compliments and baubles.
Few world leaders have performed the sport of toadying to Trump as assiduously as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In 2019, Trump and the Indian chief met in Houston for the large “Howdy Modi” rally, which attracted greater than 50,000 attendees. The assembly was each a marketing campaign occasion (designed to assist Trump win the fast-rising Indian American vote) and an opportunity to cement the ties between the 2 nations. At that rally, Modi called Trump his “true good friend within the White Home.” The next yr, Trump visited India for a good bigger occasion referred to as “Namaste Trump,” which drew not less than 100,000 individuals. These occasions had been designed to forge ties that had been each private and ideological. Modi is commonly described as India’s counterpart to Trump. Each males are authoritarian populists who’ve constructed their coalitions by attacking migrants and minority teams. In governing type, each males are wheeler-dealers, with a powerful religion of their means to make private connections that may overcome diplomatic disputes. In February, Modi was one of many first overseas leaders to go to the White Home and spoke passionately about his “nice friendship” with Trump. At that assembly, Trump and Modi promised to double commerce between the 2 nations.
On Wednesday, Modi and the Indian authorities discovered how little friendship with Trump is value when the president took to social media to announce his intention to impose steep tariffs of fifty p.c on India. Time factors out that these are “among the many steepest U.S. levies of any nation.” This damage was mixed with an insult that’s particularly more likely to sting in India, an rising energy with an elite that’s self-conscious about how they’re perceived by the bigger world. The fast pretext for the tariffs was that India was shopping for Russian oil. With passive-aggressive spite, Trump wrote on Reality Social, “I don’t care what India does with Russia. They’ll take their useless economies down collectively, for all I care.”
Present Problem
The Indian authorities responded that this criticism is selectively and capriciously utilized. It’s true that the nation buys Russian oil, however that’s one thing it was inspired to do by america as just lately as final yr as a result of it could assist stabilize the worldwide power market. Additional, the European Union continues to do extra commerce with Russia than India does.
The Indian authorities is on strong floor in arguing that it’s being picked on by Trump administration as a simple goal. Trump has been below stress from NATO allies to do extra to assist Ukraine, and India, as a midlevel energy, makes a handy punching bag.
In going after India, Trump is subverting a long time of efforts to construct nearer ties between the world’s two largest democracies. Throughout the Chilly Struggle, India and america had chilly relationships as a result of the US supported Pakistan as a bulwark towards communism whereas the subcontinent pursued a coverage of independency and neutrality. However beginning within the Nineteen Nineties, america adopted a bipartisan coverage of transferring nearer to India, now seen as a possible Asian counterpart to a rising China.
Trump’s flip towards India has much less to do with Russia than with the private pique of a president who is straightforward to take offense when he feels his insatiable amour propre has been insulted. India and Pakistan had a short navy conflict in Could. After the 2 nations reached a ceasefire, Trump tried to assert credit score because the dealer of the peace. That is consistent with his behavior of desirous to be seen as an indispensable world chief, however India seen it as an insult to its nationwide sovereignty. Modi and Trump had a prolonged telephone dialog on the matter on June 17, which Bloomberg describes as “tense.”
Bloomberg additional experiences:
Though the US by no means made a direct request for Modi to acknowledge Trump’s position within the ceasefire, India noticed a shift in tone from the White Home after that telephone name, in line with the officers in New Delhi. As soon as Trump started publicly attacking India, they added, it was clear the episode marked a turning level within the broader relationship.
Trump’s mercurial, personality-based diplomacy is more likely to result in a long-term chilling of the connection with India. Some in India are contrasting Trump’s instability with the a lot calmer relationship India has loved with Russia over a few years. The New York Instances notes that Modi domestically has “confronted a storm of criticism over the Trump administration’s remedy of India.” Navdeep Suri, who had served as India’s excessive commissioner to Australia, advised Bloomberg, “The Russia relationship is outdated, time-tested. All these days when the US was letting New Delhi down, together with on the United Nations, Moscow stood behind India like a rock. Oil is a small half of the present story. India received’t wish to be seen as capitulating below stress.”
One consequence of Trump’s slap within the face is that the Indian authorities is stepping up its efforts to enhance ties with China, regardless of having fought a border conflict with this neighboring nation as just lately as 2020. Considerably, Xu Feihong, China’s ambassador to India, used Trump’s newest tariff hike to attract a lesson by tweeting, “Give the bully an inch, he’ll take a mile.”
Xu’s feedback get to the guts of the matter. Trump is a bully. His tariff coverage, though wearing rhetoric about reshoring and nationwide safety, has little or no strategic foundation. It’s designed solely to feed Trump’s never-satisfied ego. Whereas flattering Trump has change into a preferred technique of many countries, there’s little evidence that it really works. Actually, like many bullies, Trump is extra respectful of those that battle again. China, which has taken a agency line in protection of its nationwide pursuits, is doing better at trade negotiations with america than India is.
For a center energy like India, the easiest way to take care of Trump will not be flattery or faux bonhomie. Trump has no actual pals, solely abject cronies. A greater path is to work out commerce offers with different massive economies corresponding to China, Brazil, or South Africa. Such a coverage would hark again to India’s Chilly Struggle technique of constructing a nonaligned bloc. For that matter, even nominal US allies corresponding to Canada, Mexico, and European Union ought to take into consideration creating such a bloc. The one method to beat the bully is to create a counter energy that may push again. Within the age of Trump, flattery will get you nowhere.
On this second of disaster, we want a unified, progressive opposition to Donald Trump.
We’re beginning to see one take form within the streets and at poll packing containers throughout the nation: from New York Metropolis mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s marketing campaign centered on affordability, to communities defending their neighbors from ICE, to the senators opposing arms shipments to Israel.
The Democratic Get together has an pressing option to make: Will it embrace a politics that’s principled and standard, or will it proceed to insist on shedding elections with the out-of-touch elites and consultants that bought us right here?
At The Nation, we all know which aspect we’re on. Daily, we make the case for a extra democratic and equal world by championing progressive leaders, lifting up actions combating for justice, and exposing the oligarchs and companies profiting on the expense of us all. Our impartial journalism informs and empowers progressives throughout the nation and helps deliver this politics to new readers prepared to hitch the battle.
We want your assist to proceed this work. Will you donate to help The Nation’s impartial journalism? Each contribution goes to our award-winning reporting, evaluation, and commentary.
Thanks for serving to us tackle Trump and construct the simply society we all know is feasible.
Sincerely,
Bhaskar Sunkara
President, The Nation