Long suspected, and now confirmed: the trade war between the United States of America and India is, in fact, the result of an ego clash between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and it has little to do with India-US trade itself. To be precise: it is the ego clash over Trump’s keen desire for Modi’s endorsement of his Nobel Peace Prize nomination, following Operation Sindoor and the consequent ceasefire on May 10.
A recent report by The New York Times on the subject said: “Mr Trump had been saying — repeatedly, publicly, exuberantly — that he had ‘solved’ the military conflict between India and Pakistan, a dispute that dates back more than 75 years and is far deeper and more complicated than Mr Trump was making it out to be.” The NYT report said that Prime Minister Modi was “losing patience” with President Trump.
NYT reported: “During a phone call on June 17, Mr Trump brought it up again, saying how proud he was of ending the military escalation. He mentioned that Pakistan was going to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize, an honor for which he had been openly campaigning. The not-so-subtle implication, according to people familiar with the call, was that Mr Modi should do the same.”
This did not go down well. “The Indian leader bristled. He told Mr Trump that US involvement had nothing to do with the recent ceasefire,” reported NYT.
And thus began the unravelling of the India-US trade ties. Not only was India hit with a 25 per cent tariff for its exports to America, but it also got hit by an additional tariff of 25 per cent — taking the total to a hefty 50 per cent — when Trump failed to negotiate a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war and the United States blamed India for it.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has gone to the extent of calling the Russia-Ukraine conflict “Modi’s war” in a high-profile interview.
The Indian government has sharply criticised the double standard in American policy — the US blames India for buying Russian crude oil when America itself imports certain products from Russia and is quite accommodating with Russian crude buyer China.
The trade war was looking impossibly vexing until the NYT report uncovered Trump’s bruised ego after Modi’s refusal to endorse the Nobel Peace Prize bid. The report also explored why India rejects third-party interference in its handling of Pakistan.
Operation Sindoor was the military action launched by the Modi government in early May this year, following the exceptionally outrageous massacre of Indian tourists in Pahalgam, Kashmir, by Pakistani terrorists in late April.
In a targeted operation, India bombed several terrorist camps on territories under the control of Pakistan. Then Pakistan fired a few of its own; India replied in kind. A rumour that did the rounds was that one of the Indian strikes had hit a place very close to a Pakistani nuclear site.
A ceasefire was agreed upon on May 10, and it is for this ceasefire that Trump has been repeatedly claiming credit. However, India has officially — and emphatically — dismissed any suggestion that the pause in Operation Sindoor had anything to do with a third party, and New Delhi said it was Pakistan that requested the ceasefire.
