Trump Vs Modi. The ‘king’ battling a ‘world guru’?
The spat between Donald Trump’s America and Narendra Modi’s India would be amusing if it weren’t so serious a matter.
But this is not a boxing match between two strongmen with a penchant for grand self-bestowed titles. Mr Trump has likened himself to a “king” on social media and Mr Modi has allowed himself to be hailed as a “vishwaguru”, which means world guru or teacher to the world.
No, this is not a battle between world king and world guru.
Instead, a major reset is underway and there are at least three in this relationship. Some 25 years after the United States made the slow pivot away from Pakistan towards India, Mr Trump is turning the bus around, only he’s doing it while driving at speed and he’s not looking in the rearview mirror at all.
Consider this.
- In late July, Mr Trump slapped stiff tariffs on India – one of the highest in Asia, higher than on its neighbours and gallingly, a full six points above arch-rival Pakistan’s 19 per cent.
- He has dismissed India as a “dead economy” and derided its trade barriers as “strenuous and obnoxious” just because it tried to protect its agricultural sector.
- He has demanded India cease buying oil from Russia and promised to penalise it for doing so. India has indicated it won’t cease and desist.
- In May, Mr Trump insisted he had brokered peace between India and Pakistan and prevented the nuclear-armed neighbours’ four-day near-war from further escalation. He hasn’t stopped saying as much, Pakistan nodding along in agreement, even as India continues to underscore its view there was no US-led mediation.
- He has praised Pakistan and promised to work with it to develop, what Mr Trump called, its “massive oil reserves”. In a sly kick at New Delhi, Mr Trump even suggested India may, one day, buy oil from Pakistan. “Who knows, maybe they’ll be selling oil to India someday!”
- Finally, and most significant of all perhaps, that lunch meeting at the White House in June between Mr Trump and Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshall Asim Munir. It was the first time a US president had hosted a military chief from Pakistan who isn’t also the country’s head of state. Even though Pakistan is not currently under martial law, the field marshall is still widely understood to be the most powerful man in the country.
All of this underlines America’s fluid relationship settings under this president. It’s more than a tussle between wannabe king and wannabe world guru. Asim Munir, Pakistan’s pious soldier, is key.
