Misjudging a presidency: How overconfidence about Trump era turned to anger

There are a lot of people in New Delhi who would like us to forget exactly how pleased, even smug, they were when President Donald Trump was voted into office in the United States (US) last year. The rest of the world might be concerned about his impulsiveness, his wayward economic instincts, and his willingness to burn bridges with America’s friends. But India, these people would tell us, was different. We were confident that we would emerge ahead in the Trump era. Perhaps we thought we knew how to deal with leaders with problematic economic policies? Perhaps we imagined we shared his cynical, amoral approach to international relations? Or perhaps we were just certain that anyone who disliked the same people we do — liberals, etc, etc — would be on “our side” in international affairs far more than, say, the pesky Democrats. Let Europe, Japan, Canada, and especially China quake in their boots; India was prepared for a Trump term.

 

We now know exactly how much that confidence was worth. India may yet emerge from this period of flux in trading relations with a tariff rate and exemption list from the US that allows some of its exporters to survive. But it is at this point in time unlikely that we will emerge as comfortably as have the old allies of the US — the British, for example — or even our peers and neighbours in Southeast Asia, which have settled in to make the best of it with tariff rates of 19 or 20 per cent. Indian officials are currently wondering how to bring the same rates for us back down from 50 per cent to 25.

 

Unfortunately, some of the same discredited voices that had been so sanguine about India’s position in Mr Trump’s worldview are among the loudest now suggesting that Mr Trump’s insults are insupportable, imperialist, and so on. Any criticism levelled at the President is likely accurate and fair. But, as leaders from Europe to Northeast Asia have figured out, it is also irrelevant. Some concessions clearly will have to be made to his pet obsessions, particularly on trade. The world is as it is, and Mr Trump is who he is, and the rest of us have to work around him and ignore him as far as possible, not react to his provocations.

 

It seems that some of us — a set that overlaps oddly with those welcoming Mr Trump to office – have now made up our mind that his statements mean that our national interest, indeed our civilisational pride, requires us to hitch our wagon firmly to the Russian Federation instead, chasing a few billion dollars’ per year worth of savings in oil from Moscow over the multiple billions that accrue from trade with America and the West. Countries from France to Indonesia might ignore the President’s provocations and find a way to deal with the US nevertheless, this argument runs, but India must not.

 

It is true that countries can manage a lot of pain if they must. If this is one of those occasions — such as after the nuclear tests — when India must endure a certain amount of privation to secure its long-term interests, then it is one thing. However, we should be very doubtful if the same instincts — driven by overconfidence — that led us to view Mr Trump’s advent with excitement now lead us down a path of isolation.

 

There is, after all, another way of looking at how we have handled the past few years. We determined that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was none of our business, and proceeded to see how we could save some cash from it instead by buying slightly discounted oil. Officials estimated that there was no chance that this decision “in the national interest” would ever lead to anyone taking any sort of measures that seriously inconvenienced a state as pivotal and indispensable as India. Now that such inconvenient actions have been taken, or at least seriously threatened, by the leader of the West, we have two options: Either we recognise that our estimations of “the national interest” were incorrect in 2023, or we double down and insist that “the national interest” further requires us to run into the waiting arms of our close friends in Moscow, and therefore also embrace our reliable associates in Beijing. Which sounds more rational and supportive of the national interest to you?