Trump has been equally unsparing and insulting to India, despite his avowed friendship with PM Modi.
“Whatever has happened thus far (the bewildering variety of utterances and actions of absurdity) under the POTUS can be compared, to an extent, with the 26-year chapter (1325-1351) of Indian history’s Delhi Durbar monarch Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq. Historians have graciously judged Tughlaq as “an amazing compound of contradictions” for making the impossible possible, even if for a fleeting moment, and then trying to unscramble the scrambled egg (like scenario) through equally fancy actions of ethereal fiction.”
The President of the US (POTUS) is deeply aggrieved over what he describes as global attempts to fleece America through tariffs on US goods that are going to foreign countries. Consequently, he has taken a vow to retaliate with tariff-for-tariff in equal measure to make his mission to “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) a grand success during his tenure in the White House itself. In the process, a multi-front strategy is being implemented at battle speed, affecting the entire country and shaking large sections of the populace.
To suggest that the US today is in turmoil would be an understatement because of the unexpectedly astonishing opposition to a broad spectrum of Trump’s policy and against a few of his favorite high-profile personnel. The opposition is by no less than some people who were once either close to the POTUS or important officials implementing state policy decisions in the recent past.
The developments in the US today appear far from refreshing or reassuring to assuage the feelings of either Trump or the common people. Consequently, mission MAGA of the POTUS is creating a headache every day owing to Trump’s uncontrollable and uncontrolled lack of appropriate vocabulary. It is, thereby, putting both friends and foes alike under psychological stress. Trump thinks that his method would succeed in making people all around to kowtow to him and make them succumb to his whims and fancies during his four-year occupancy of the White House.
Not exactly. Today, the POTUS, too, needs to do some self-introspection and reflect on his acts through a full-sized mirror to reassess whether he is overstretching himself to put his pet MAGA to an acute angle of futility and resorting to an act of no return.
Psychologically, therefore, Trump has made himself an enigma; a classic case study of a grievously make-belief wounded soul who has managed to pile loads of pending unaddressed grievances during his days of being a common American, without the glitz and glamour of the official paraphernalia.
Whatever has happened thus far (the bewildering variety of utterances and actions of absurdity) under the POTUS can be compared, to an extent, with the 26-year chapter (1325-1351) of Indian history’s Delhi Durbar monarch Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq. Historians have graciously judged Tughlaq as “an amazing compound of contradictions” for making the impossible possible, even if for a fleeting moment, and then trying to unscramble the scrambled egg (like scenario) through equally fancy actions of ethereal fiction.
In fact, Trump’s every move and management style seems to be taking his unpredictably predictable course of absurdity to a new height of diplomatic embarrassment. From Panama to Canada, Denmark to Germany, each friendly state is feeling hurt, being insulted, ridiculed and snubbed by the POTUS.
Also, the growing list of impossible demands being claimed by Trump gives the impression of an urban land mafia don on the prowl to possess immovable property in prime locations.
However, one thing glitters amidst this gloom. Trump is “honestly” non-discriminatory about his indiscriminate howling at all, however mighty or muscular he/she may be, belittling or ridiculing (officially invited) foreign Heads of Government or State. Thus, all foreign dignitaries are under pressure when face to face with the POTUS, notwithstanding its being unlikely to be good news for the USA in the long run.
Thus, Trump has been equally unsparing and insulting to India, notwithstanding his avowed personal friendship with the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. “I have exposed India on tariff,” declared a condescending Trump and followed it up with a unilateral declaration that “India has reduced tariff”.
What absurdity! No meeting, no talks, no discussion between India and America, but the ordained verdict arrives from the White House! Is it a delusion of grandeur? The gross act of the POTUS amounts to the humiliation of successive Indian establishments.
His command of demands is reaching an intolerable height, hence unacceptable to this Indian, at least. So, let Trump recall his own country’s tariff saga which put the USA on the road to prosperity.
Alexander Hamilton, the first US Treasury Secretary (1789), wanted his country to be on “firm commercial basis”. In 1791, he defended the “protection” of the local US manufacturing industry as a fundamental prerequisite. “Not only wealth, but independence and security of country were materially connected to prosperity of manufacturers.” Hamilton laid the foundation of the subsequent belief of Americans in their “manifest destiny”, whatever that means, internally or otherwise.
The US soon became a strongly protectionist country throughout the second half of the 19th century as the victorious Republicans post US Civil War, in 1865, emerged as a party of “national economic might” with a very high level of protection and very low-income tax.
The “high priest of high protection” was the Republican, William McKinley, the 25th POTUS. Before becoming President, his 1890 McKinley tariff raised import duties to an average of 49.5 per cent because he was convinced that “tariff created jobs, generated revenue for the government and preserved the US industrial power”.
Consequently, the story of US unilateralism in economics, commerce and tariffs developed a long narrative of its own. It has usually been extremely self-centered through the ages, but for the two World Wars, which turned tariff protection into free trade, owing to the mobilization of vast resources and an equally vast investment in the US’ war economics.
Trump, therefore, must stop slighting India at every step — from handcuffing its deportees to using abusive language on everything about New Delhi tariffs. Indian tariffs, good or bad, are for the 1.4 billion Indians. Let Trump deal with China, which finished the US industry, led by the Republican Nixon-Kissinger duo. Incidentally, was Kissinger right or wrong to suggest “it may be dangerous to be US’ enemy but to be US’ friend is fatal”? Is India’s US friendship destined to be fatal? Was Indira Gandhi prophetic to push back the USA in 1971?
(Abhijit Bhattacharya is a Supreme Court lawyer, ex IRS Officer, Author and Columnist, Defense and Security Analyst and a China specialist)
