Donald Trump is undoubtedly the most challenging US President the world has encountered for a long time. Uncle Sam was known to twist the arms of friends and foes alike in the past, in the decades of the Cold War, but to do so now, in the post-Soviet time was not expected. Without an equal and worthy challenger since Gorbachev’s Perestroika led to the hara-kiri of the Russian Empire of the Proletariat, America was itching to revert to its old game.
Over the years China has grown in clout, funds and shrewdness under Xi’s neo-imperialism couched as Communism. America is gleeful at having met an enemy worth engaging. The words and deeds of Trump demonstrate an ebullient spirit to get even and thrash out potential challenges from anywhere. China is now past the benchmark of the erstwhile USSR which was the bête noir of the old America! That sets the context for the resurgent Trump’s entry on the world stage, back from near humiliation and harassment of unprecedented nature by the so-called American deep state.
Only the naïve among Indian policymakers and political pundits would buy the argument that China is on the brink of collapse due to the tenacious fury of the Cowboy. India has a long long way to go till the US or anyone in the West would see us as a worthy challenge to the Chinese power play.
Make no mistake. Trump is an unashamedly transactional President. He is agile, is nationalist to the core and knows how to pander to the middle-class white American voters, less educated, very conservative and most of them harbouring notions of racial superiority over the Global South.
Trump is more likely to see value in playing sheer power politics of the blow-hot-blow-cold variety with the Chinese. He would naturally find it yielding the results that he wants. He is looking for jobs for the average white worker. He wants the ‘Made in the US’ brand to thrive globally. He wants China to be a willing partner to play the Yankee game of geopolitical eyeball dancing. The susceptible and mercenary players on the global stage like Pakistan can be managed better by aligning with China rather than directly engaging them and Trump wants someone to play his game, with all its devious and deflecting undertones. Trump is smart enough to see that having China on his side, albeit stealthily, would be far more useful to realise his MAGA dreams than going for a combative duel with it. Herein lies the realpolitik of why Trump is obviously looking cold on an Indian outreach, at least for now.
India is much less useful to Trump than China or even Pakistan whose China bonhomie could be leveraged to keep a tight lease on India’s geopolitical ambitions. Containing Indian growth aspirations seems a common agenda for China, Pakistan and the US, though the last one is subtle and played through proxy!
Both for spurring global trade and business flows to the advantage of the US and for intimidating the Global South economies with a cunning and tempting game plan, the US and Trump would willy-nilly gravitate towards a strategy of ‘live and let live’ with China. India can only be a marginal power in trade and business on the global stage. Apart from a few names like Adani and Ambani with clout and ambition, Indai can't channel much investment, supplies or manufacturing prowess into the US. China can on the contrary be talked into a win-win recalibration of trade and investment protocol.
The chaotic and personalized politics of convenience in India is a deterrent to Trump whose impatient and agile result-orientation could better be satiated by Chinese investment, markets and smartness waiting to be tapped.
All in all, India seems to be in for a tough ride, economically, politically and diplomatically.
This is a pessimistic perspective and many of you may be disappointed. But on balance, this scenario is a reasonable possibility and we need at best to shed our over-exuberance on Trump's presidency. It is too early and perhaps too romantic to cry out, “Happy days are here again”.
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