Opposition takes it as a good opportunity to lambast PM
By Sushil Kutty
There was a time when lots of Indians got along with the thought of Donald Trump, who came down the elevator and became President of the United States in 2016. Year 2020 and a second term went begging because Trump burned bridges and set himself up for a sucker. Trump faced censure and Joe Biden became President. Trump refused to be at Biden’s inauguration.
Trump sulked and Trump made no bones of his disappointment. Then came yet another POTUS election and Donald Trump is now POTUS again, the ’47th’. Lots of Indians rejoiced thinking Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were buddies and all’s gonna be hunky-dory in India-US relations.
The disappointment! President Trump the second time over isn’t the one who came down the elevator. This POTUS is hardly recognizable. The 45th and 47th are like chalk and cheese, sweet and sour. To this extent that today, six months into Trump’s repeat term, separated by 4 years of political wilderness, Trump is mired in a tariff war with half the world.
Worst of all, Trump is targeting India and Modi is no longer Trump’s fancy. Also India īs lashing out at the United States’ double standards. And India is being subjected to “renewed threats” from President Trump, who is pissed off that he cannot lay down the law to Modi and make a clean getaway, what to do?
So, a curtailed and crimped Trump is reading the riot act to India and getting nothing back in the bargain because, it turns out India is the cool cucumber and not the hot chilli Mexicans and American cowboys ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner. India is acting deaf but not dumb and that’s not acceptable in Trump’s book.
President Trump’s 25% tariff hasn’t tamed India. Nor the 10% penalty. India is behaving like there is no Trump and if Trump has a beef with Russia, he shouldn’t be belting it out of India. He should revert to Pinto beans as a food source, the American cowboy’s staple while on the open range.
Trump wants a trade deal with India, after the one with China and Trump is dangling all sorts of slick talk along with demands that India open up its agricultural and dairy sectors for America. Problem is US beef is fed on beef and America’s milk products just don’t taste holy for Indians who are brought up on a diet of revering the holy cow.
Trump thinks the white man gets the plum and the brown coolie, American ground beef. Trump hasn’t yet caught on that the United States has bitten off more than what Trump can chew. But, wait, Trump is being taught nice and proper and of what it amounts to. India is not the sort of country which can be wrapped around a barrel and given a scalding hiding.
Trump doesn’t want India to buy Russian crude oil for its refineries and India is acting like “who’s America?”. Trump’s cronies have drummed into Trump’s head “India is financing Russia’s Ukraine war and there wouldn’t be an end to the Russia-Ukraine war unless India stops buying Russian crude.
Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller says Trump loved both India and Prime Minister Modi and there are two ingrates now. Also Trump called India’s and Russia’s two dead economies and to hell with both India and Russia, both are gonna go down the tube “sooner than later”.
President Trump is mad at Russia and crazily mad at India for being in the way of Trump and the Nobel Peace Prize. The entire Trump administration has been put on the job to arrange the Nobel for President Trump, which he believes will put him in the same league of President Barack Obama. Trump and Obama are swords drawn, contempt and disdain!
India the other day responded and said the United States was doing exactly what Trump alleged India was doing, buying stuff from Russia, purchases of uranium and fertiliser. Trump shot back that he wasn’t aware of any such deals and that he will inquire and get back (to the reporter!).
“I don’t know anything about it. I have to check it out,” Trump shot back. Apparently after being told that Trump’s ‘USA First’ policy was singling India out unfairly while still remaining hitched to Russia! Who is the “Woh” in this ‘Menage a trois’, “household of three”? Carrying on with Russia while warning India off with threats of heightened tariffs.
Trump is green with envy and purple with jealousy. It used to be orange in his first term. But then those were the good ole days when President Trump and Prime Minister Modi were chums and clung to each other like lost and found brothers. Today, Trump is the petulant child and Modi like a grandfather though Trump is the older of the two.
And one of the outcomes of the Trump-Modi rift is Indians all getting into a unity pact against the United States’ aggressive tactics. All political parties are reportedly on the same page though rumour-mongering is a favourite Indian pastime, so help us god! Suffice to say this sort of assertion sounds too good to be true. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi cannot be on the same page, perish the thought. (IPA Service)
