PM Modi Has Little Choice Than to Deal with Trump's Way or the Highway

On a recent podcast with Lex Fridman, PM Modi asserted, “His (Trump's) life was for his nation. His reflection showed his America first spirit, just as I believe in India first”.

(Photo: PTI)

Perhaps the most authoritative commentator on Donald Trump's personality is Michael Wolff, author of three books on his first term as the US President. In his books – Fire and Fury, Siege, and Landslide – Wolff chronicles Trump's friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financer and sex offender who ultimately died by suicide and was known as “Donald’s closest friend for 10 years”.

Epstein like Trump, was extraordinarily wealthy, licentious, and amoral in all sorts of interpersonal dealings (both were convicted multiple times). Trump had earlier confirmed his 'bromance' with Epstein by saying,

“I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Not perhaps, unlike some of Hollywood's campy projections of America's power corridors, this glitzy world of wealth, deceit, and debauchery that the likes of Trump and Epstein inhabit, seems to run solely on transactions. Old-fashioned virtues like respect, decency or honest friendships can take a hike.

Ultimately, like in all transactional relationships, it took a business deal gone awry (and not any personal disconnect borne out of discomfort with each other’s known peccadilloes) to break up the bromance.

One competitive bid for a real estate deal and the decades-old partnership between the two 'wingmen' was over. Trump’s personal history had been instructive in deciding his politics and actions in his first term, and it will remain so, even in his second term, with only the intensity of his transactional salesmanship towards the promise of Make America Great Again.

Friends with (No) Benefits

In the rarefied world of Trump, everyone has a limited utility, and everyone is dispensable. It's either his way or the highway. He is prone to some pretty incredulous venom spewing against not only his sworn enemies but also his one-time colleagues, co-ideologues, and friends. All one needs to do to get in his bad books is to criticise Trump.

While announcing the recent hiring of "1,000 people for the US government," by his administration, Trump said, “It would be helpful if you would not send, or recommend to us, people who worked with, or are endorsed by, 'Americans for No Prosperity' (headed by Charles Koch), ‘dumb as a rock’ John Bolton, ‘birdbrain’ Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, 'disloyal warmongers' Dick Cheney and his 'psycho daughter' Liz, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, General (?) Mark Milley, James Mattis, Mark Yesper, or any of the other people suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, more commonly known as TDS.”

Now, unsurprisingly, the loudest cries of concern are not coming from the traditional or expected enemies of the US like Russia or China, but from historical allies like the European Union, Canada, Mexico, and even those who are completely dependent on the US for their survival like Ukraine.

Basically, the world is slowly adjusting to the reality that anyone can be thrown under the proverbial bus by the US. In Trump 2.0, there is no space for words like allies, friends, or value-based relationships.

Hate is the new currency, and unbridled vent to emotions like revenge, free rein of the powerful (like telling Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “do what you have to do” regarding Palestine), and open threats of tariff-wars are the new normal.

Well-meaning warnings (about Trump being unfit for office and a grave threat to democracy) by most former staff members who worked closely with him in his first tenure notwithstanding, Trump is the 47th President of America—and the world knows that it just has to deal with it/him.

The reality check in dealing with a Trump hit the likes of the beleaguered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the humiliating dressing down that he got in full public gaze. It was classic Trumpian treatment—unrestrained and 'raw'.

It was also the body language of an empowered bully who now has the power of the pulpit. All and sundry – including friends past and present – need to acquiesce to him or be ready to face embarrassing consequences.

Jibes, innuendoes, and open threats notwithstanding, the so-called friends of Trump are now readying for the new terms of engagement going forward.

In this era, old equations, sovereign dignities, or terms of the past governing bilateral relations, are all inapplicable.

His initial grandstanding aside, Zelenskyy has the double misfortune of inadvertently becoming a case study for the world—a guide on what not to do to avoid the wrath of Trump.

Despite the unprecedented embarrassment, Zelenskyy was simply forced to swallow his pride and bend. He was forced to gush praises and gratitude to the imperious Trump, who lapped up the subsequent course-correction. Put simply, Zelenskyy was left with no choice to negotiate diplomatically or in a civil manner.

Thus, the essential message for the world leaders at large is that there are not to be any equals to Trump by way of past personal or sovereign relations anymore.

Personal flattery is but to be expected, and visibilised ‘concession’ from previous stands by other countries (favouring the US), are key to retaining relationship with Trump.

Like every bully exacting revenge on the world, perhaps by way of making up for their own cowardice and insecurity, Trump delights in winning a ‘deal’, knowing that he holds the power to outrage others without impinging on his own safety but at the cost of their pain.

No 'Dostana' with Delhi

Delhi, and yet another so-called Trump's ‘friend’ of the past, Prime Minister Modi, would understand the lay of the land that looms.

The initial 'purab-pashchim' bromance with patented ‘Huglomacy’ at ‘Howdy Modi’ and ‘Namaste Trump’ jamborees is part of a material past. For all the talks of the two leaders being ‘personal friends’, it was Chinese President Xi Jinping who got the invite to Trump’s swearing-in—not Modi. Trump’s less-than-savory rhetoric (read threat?) by throwing around phrases like “Tariff King”, “big abuser”, and “reciprocal tariffs” is only getting shriller.

Delhi is studiously adapting to the situation, whilst avoiding a public and substantial rebuke that can be expected from Trump, should Delhi not show signs of ‘concessions'.

For Delhi, the best-case scenario would be demonstrating ‘accommodation’ of Trump's concerns directionally (and to his grudging satisfaction)—without it looking like a ‘surrender’ to cadres and constituents in India. This calls for an extremely tight-roped policy and deft handling (more by the Ministry of Trade and Commerce as opposed to diplomatese of the Ministry of External Affairs). To that effect, the tariff ‘corrections’ are quietly underway in India without drawing too much media attention.

In parallel, the mandated charm offensive is led by Modi’s generous assessment of the future Indo-US relationship, whilst tellingly avoiding the litany of barbs and uncharitable mentions being tweeted by the POTUS.

Unlike the usually thin-skinned and immediate reaction that Delhi was posturing to any seeming affront to its anchorage from any capital in the world in the recent past, there is a sudden nuance, moderation, and silence afforded to the content emanating from Washington, DC.

All this is seemingly from the global playbook of handling the Trump redux.

After all, with Modi standing next him, Trump had inelegantly railed, “Whatever India charges, we charge them”. On a later date, Trump was to add injury to insult by cavalierly claiming about Delhi, “They have agreed… they want to cut their tariffs way down now because somebody is finally exposing them”. Delhi lumped the sleight and carried on as if nothing had happened.

Podcast Diplomacy

The recent Modi interview with Lex Fridman ticked all the boxes in the playbook on how to deal with Trump. Efforts to revive and conflate their bromance with mutual admiration and similarities were designed to endear the man's ego, with PM Modi asserting, “His (Trump's) life was for his nation. His reflection showed his America first spirit, just as I believe in India first”.

The impact was immediate, and a chuffed Trump was quick to upload the link of the effusive Modi podcast to his social media platform Truth Social (a platform Modi had joined days earlier).

So far so good. But a lot of ground needs to be covered, and engagement has to silently move before 2 April (grandiosely christened ‘Liberation Day’ by Americans), the stated deadline for ‘reciprocal tariff’.

If Delhi does manage to stave of the situation without allowing the US major ‘concessions’ (let alone, ‘surrender’ to it), it would perhaps demonstrate a better way of dealing with Trumpism than was managed by the European Union, Ukraine, Canada or Mexico. But it's a big 'if'.

Incidentally, Wolff is now out with his fourth book on Trump, All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America, and it adds even more interconvertible evidence of the POTUS' unhinged conduct, the unnaturalness of his relationship with his wife (“She ******* hates him”), and his patent salesmanship sans content, gravitas, or diplomacy that by now has become well-established.

No new surprises, only more salacious and worrisome instances of what the world will be dealing for the next four years.

(The author is a Former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)