The message from Trump’s tirade against India

A series of recent statements and actions by the Donald Trump administration targeting India has left the dominant section of the Indian strategic community with a feeling of betrayal.

The US signalling its distancing from India and its aspiration for a decisive strategic role in South Asia could not be clearer.

To get his way, Trump is trying to bully and humiliate India almost on a daily basis. He is unlikely to stop until India bends.

Starting with public humiliation and chaining illegal Indian migrant deportees, Trump has repeated claims (30 times so far) of how he successfully brokered the ceasefire after the four-day Pakistan-India war following Operation Sindoor.

He also claimed that it was his trade deal threats that calmed both nations. He is thus continuously challenging India’s long-standing position of no foreign intervention in India’s bilateral matters.

To make matters worse, Trump has been on a tirade against India’s economic policy calling India the “king of tariffs”.

This has been followed by the imposition of 25% tariffs on all Indian exports with the threat of additional penalties unless India stops importing Russian oil and military hardware.

These actions were accompanied by humiliating and derogatory language: “I don’t care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together, for all I care”.

Thereafter, President Trump declared the US and Pakistan had concluded a deal...

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