No mean task to play hide-and-seek with Trump

The crystal ball does not foretell what Donald Trump may do next.

What do we know?

That his relationship with the European Union is frosty, that he is pally at the moment with President Vladimir Putin of Russia and, while he hates America’s trade deficit with China, he wants a deal with President Xi Jinping.

The surprise element is his transformed attitude to India. We’ve all heard about the 50 per cent tariffs, Trump’s brags about the India–Pakistan ceasefire that have embarrassed the Indian prime minister, and the persistence with which the POTUS repeats the claim, as if to demand a public acknowledgement from India of his administration’s role in brokering peace with Pakistan.

The doubling of tariff rates for India in the space of a few days — from 25 per cent to 50 per cent — was allegedly because India was “profiteering” from Russia’s war on Ukraine. India cited its “economic interests” to justify the purchases. For perspective, energy imports constitute two- thirds of India’s import bill.

Yet, while it is India’s sovereign right to procure oil from a source of its choice, and lower prices have a compelling logic, it is odd that the benefit of lower prices were not passed on to the Indian consumer, while enabling private Indian refiners to profit big-time from re-exporting processed petroleum products. That reality does make the “profiteering” argument tenable.

It’s a double bind, though, because India cannot stop crude procurement from Russia — not even to soften Trump — without jeopardising supplies of vital Russian weapons.

Trump suspended trade negotiations with India after the Modi government drew a red line on granting American agricultural products unfettered access to the Indian market. Not doing this would have been politically suicidal for Modi, never mind his tender feelings for America from the starry-eyed days of his youth.

Trump’s anger with India is also because of its membership of BRICS, which is collectively a bigger economic entity than not just the US but the G7 countries combined. He sees it as a big challenge in his isolationist schema.

His current annoyance with India also puts a question mark over the Quad, a four-way alliance between the US, Japan, India and Australia, to counter China. India was hoping to host a Quad summit this year.

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Has the US–India ‘strategic partnership’ reached breaking point? Is India at risk of losing its biggest export market? Or will Trump ease off?

It’s not really about who blinks first in this standoff, but rather whether Trump’s aides can convince him to go soft in mutual interest. The matter is largely in his hands, as India has limited cards to play.

On 27 August, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent gave out mixed signals when he told Fox News, “I think at the end of the day we will come together,” but also added, “They have very high tariffs and we have a very large deficit with them.”

Trump will not be unhappy about Indian exports to the US declining, thereby reducing America’s trade shortfall. The only thing that might concern Trump is the possible cancellation of big-ticket sales of Boeing aircraft and defence equipment, which were in the pipeline.

The Modi dispensation was unprepared for Trump’s sudden pivot. It had put (almost) all its eggs in the US basket, despite warning signs in Trump’s first term. Modi has now reached out to Germany, Japan, Britain, France, Russia, South Korea, among others, to offset the potential loss in export turnover with the US. Since all of them are busy re-orienting strategies to the Trumpian trade order, they are likely to be sympathetic to India’s outreach, but they will also drive a hard bargain.

India can’t escape distress in the short term, though.

These are uncertain times, but US–India ties will survive — there is life after Trump. Many nations expected disruption under the current PoTUS and were bracing themselves for the shock. Meanwhile, the Modi establishment was lulled into believing that the Trump–Modi chemistry would endure and was busy counting its chickens before… tragedy struck.

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Last heard, the US wants dialogue between India and Pakistan to resolve their differences. In response to an email enquiry from National Herald, the US state department says: ‘Maintaining the ceasefire is critical to preserving regional stability, and we continue to urge both countries to engage in direct communication with each other to avert future conflict.’ It adds: ‘We support direct discussions between India and Pakistan on issues concerning Kashmir’, but qualifies that with the suggestion that these talks could be at ‘a pace, scope and character to be determined by both sides’ (emphasis added).

The 1972 Simla Agreement between India and Pakistan commits the two countries to settling disputes bilaterally, unless decided otherwise by both parties. This has prevented Pakistan from imposing third party involvement on India. At the same time, Pakistan is keen on Trump wading in.

The respected German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that Modi hasn’t taken phone calls from Trump. Well-informed Indian diplomats find this far-fetched, but Modi’s record in extempore situations — including the fact that he hasn’t held a single press conference in 11 years — lends some credence to his reported avoidance.

Modi seems to have outsourced the outreach — to US lobbyist firm Mercury Public Affairs. Susie Wiles was a registered lobbyist with Mercury before Trump hired her as his chief of staff, and Wiles reportedly has Trump’s ear. We’ll see where that goes.

Meanwhile, Trump has named Sergio Gor, 38, as his pick for US ambassador to India.

Gor was born Gorokhovsky in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, when this republic was a part of the Soviet Union. Gorokhovsky is a Slavic surname, most commonly Russian, which establishes his family’s origins. His mother is presumably Jewish, for after the family moved to Malta in 1994, she became an Israeli national. In 1999, the Gorokhovskys migrated to Los Angeles, before Sergio went to study at George Washington University.

He became chief of staff of the Trump Victory Finance Committee and was a senior advisor to Trump’s pet organisation MAGA Inc. Following Trump’s re-election, he was appointed director of the Presidential Personnel Office, which meant ensuring only people on the same page as Trump were recruited for US government jobs. Gor is a media-savvy Trump loyalist but has no previous diplomatic experience.

In addition to being ambassador to India, Gor will be special envoy for South and Central Asian Affairs, a sweeping role that India is reportedly not very pleased about.

ASHIS RAY can be found on X @ashiscray