Is PM Modi Ready for Trump's Arm-Twisting? Decoding ‘Vishwaguru’ of a Changing World Order

With US President Donald Trump throwing the old global strategic equations out of the window, the Narendra Modi-led government in India needs to swiftly reorient both its domestic and foreign policies. Up till now, India held a unique place in US diplomacy as the latter viewed India as a strategic counterpoint to China’s growing economic and military might. However, with Trump clearly abandoning the worldview of previous administrations in Washington, preferring instead to strike transactional deals with wannabe imperial great powers, 19th century style, India can no longer assume a special relationship with the US — either on the basis of being one of the world’s two largest democracies or containing together the looming threat of China.There are lessons for New Delhi from the way in which the US President has turned on close allies like Canada through an arbitrary trade war and displayed an open contempt for the transatlantic alliance with Europe, aimed to stave off a resurgent Russia.This was dramatically demonstrated last week by the public humiliation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House, despite anxious European prime ministers falling at Trump’s feet pleading his case. The ugly bullying tactics including an abrupt pause of crucial American military aid and intelligence to Ukraine – geared to intimidate Zelensky into an unequal peace deal with the Russian strongman President Vladimir Putin – underlines the new ‘Trumpian’ world order where great powers carve out their respective spheres of influence without even the fig leaf of morality or ideology.Donald Trump’s Indian Americans: ‘Sehme Hue’, Worried, and Utterly SurprisedPrime Minister Modi who aspires to a larger-than-life international profile, projecting himself as a Vishwaguru, will be wise to quietly shelve these ambitions to avoid getting caught on the wrong foot in a world where naked power play seems to be prevailing.Although he was one of the first world leaders to pay tribute to the new incumbent in the White House and the meeting passed off without a discordant note, it was clear that much has changed since Trump’s first term when there was public bonhomie between the two leaders.Apart from the disconcerting spectacle of a mere protocol officer greeting the prime minister at the door when he visited the White House — in contrast to Trump personally welcoming other world leaders from Japan, Israel, and Jordan who met him at his residence around the same time — there are other disturbing signals as well.While the US President continues to call the Indian prime minister as “my friend Modi”, he has on several occasions after coming to power specifically targeted India as the chief culprit of unfair trade practices against the US, the latest instance being his State of Union speech. In an earlier interview, Trump had revealed his stern dismissal of Modi’s pleas to not impose reciprocal tariffs against India, boasting that no one could win an argument with him. His latest speech to Congress named India as one of the main protagonists in the tariff war that the US government plans to unleash on the world from the beginning of next month.The tariff war against India which could reportedly result in a loss of up to seven billion US dollars to this country’s exchequer, appears to be a typical arm-twisting tactic by Trump to get a trade deal with India on his own terms.Unlike other countries slapped with tariffs by the US government like Canada, Mexico, and China who have responded with hostile rhetoric and countermeasures, New Delhi has pointedly avoided confrontation in the hope that backroom negotiations with Washington would defuse the conflict over trade. After Trump’s announcement that reciprocal tariffs would be imposed from 2 April on all countries including India, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goel has been rushed to Washington to stop these from coming into effect before the mutually beneficial trade deal in October that was reportedly agreed upon during Modi’s visit to the White House. But the US President, obsessed as he has been from some time now of India allegedly taking unfair advantage of previous American trade policy, is unlikely to make any visible concessions.Putin's Growing Power: Why Trump-Zelensky Spat is Bad News for World SecurityThere is also the provocation of continuing hate crimes against Indians living in the US by white supremacist MAGA (Make America Great Again) fanatics. Such hate is meted out regularly in the guise of verbal abuse on social media against Indian Americans including Republican leader and NRI entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who was trolled for merely giving a television interview barefoot in his living room. Even more disturbing has been the reports of stray physical attacks on Indian students in the US and the latest horrific racist assault on Leelamma Lal, a 67-year-old nurse in a hospital in Trump stronghold Florida. Ironically, much like Hindutva ultranationalists in India, a majority of the new US President’s core of predominantly Anglo-Saxon white support base has a huge chip on their shoulder about minorities who do not share their cultural legacy.Indian migrants are particularly targeted because of their growing wealth and influence over the past several decades.Trump’s repeated mention of India fattening itself on unfair trade practices has not helped matters much.Yet, as veteran Indian diplomat and former foreign secretary Shyam Saran says India’s best option to handle the current disruption of old diplomatic ties with the US is through “the politics of deflection”. He admitted that India at the moment would do well to adopt a policy of low-key realism on the issue of reciprocal tariffs and other provocations since Trump came to power. Interestingly, foreign minister S Jaishankar himself replied half-jokingly in response to a question on how India should handle the new US administration, “It is out of syllabus”.No More ‘Howdy Modi’ Under Trump 2.0Clearly, there are wider implications for the Modi government than just handling the present turmoil.Firstly, the prime minister should realise that he can no longer use foreign policy hype amplified by media cheerleaders for domestic politics.He can also, in his relations with Washington, no longer use the power of the Indian American community since it’s more of a liability than an asset at the moment.The Trumpian world order also poses a stiff economic and political challenge to the Modi government. It needs to dig deep in its purse and spend more money to keep an avaricious US trade regime happy even as it significantly increases its defence spending, much like Europe, having lost its strategic importance to Washington.All this extra spending could seriously deplete the vast financial resources that the ruling party uses in the shape of populist giveaways and many more spendthrift schemes to win elections.Most importantly, at a time when the need of the hour is national unity in a world that is going through deep socio-political convulsions, it would be ruinous for the Modi government to either indulge in divisive politics or encourage social discord.(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist and the author of ‘Behenji: A Political Biography of Mayawati’. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)Trump 2.0 and India's Economic Interests

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‘Vishwaguru’ of a Changing World Order: Is Modi Ready for Trumpian Arm-Twisting?

Tariff wars, increased spending, shifting global geopolitics, racism: Can Modi government take on Trump 2.0?

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