Unfortunately, the title does not refer to a card game, but to the shenanigans by the newly elected US President no less; much to the dismay and discomfiture of the world. So far, his presidency has consisted of a series of wild exaggerations, taking liberties with facts. He claims to have been elected by a wild margin; he won by a slender margin of 1.5% of the popular vote. Ukraine has received, according to him, $300 billion in aid; it is $100 billion; Ukraine started the war, and it goes on and on. In his first term as President, the Washington Post found 30,573 false statements made by him. He seems to have embarked on breaking his own record. I cannot help comparing the Ukrainian situation to Hitler browbeating Neville Chamberlain into swallowing up Sudetenland by Germany on the grounds of similar ethnic origins. “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. Hitler didn’t stop there and neither will Putin; who doesn’t even recognise Ukraine as a country, but part of the old Soviet Union, and therefore entitled to overrun it. Would Trump or his VP dare speak to Putin or Kim Jung Un the way he spoke to the Ukrainian President? It reeks of undiluted diplomatic bullying never before seen publicly in the history of diplomacy. Regrettably, his insanity doesn’t stop there, because his MAGA vote bank thrives on it.
It was unthinkable for the US and Russia to vote against a UN resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine and then going further to jointly push a resolution to call for an end to the war without holding Russia responsible for it. This has turned years of post-war US foreign policy and leadership on its head. What brought about such a dramatic turn around? There is no doubt that sanctions are hurting Russia, with 9% of GDP expenditure on defence and 11% inflation. What made Trump ease off on sanctions? Some foreign policy experts suggest this is a means to contain China which the US sees as the real enemy. To believe that Trump could breach the bond between these two friends of old is, as they say, “living in cloud-cuckoo land”. He doesn’t stop there. Canada would now become part of the US; ignoring the fact that King Charles is still the head of that country. “Greenland will become ours one way or another”. And most alarmingly, all Palestinians will be thrown out of Gaza, which the Americans will then turn into another “riviera”. More pipe dreams and delusions of grandeur. Interestingly, he has his eye on Ukrainian mineral wealth. If he fails to strike a deal with President Zelenskyy, he leaves the door open for Putin to walk in and take over that same wealth. In trying to sound like a strongman seeking to whip the economy into line, he appears to rant like a genuine wannabe dictator.
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Of more immediate concern is the extent to which his ‘dreams’ affect India. Much was made of the deportations of illegal immigrants under the present regime. To be fair, deportations are not new. Even in Trumps first term, they were less than in previous presidencies. The main issue was the fact that the deportees were chained and shackled, which Jaishankar explained as being standard procedure for the US. What is being overlooked is the myriad reasons for Indian citizens leaving the country at both ends of the economic spectrum. The media is full of the illegal migrants deported, without much discussion of their reasons for entering illegally in the first place, and via extremely difficult routes to reach the promised land. Handing out their life savings and borrowings, often touching crores, to dubious ‘agents’ these people in their desperation to escape caste, religious, political and economic bias, are prepared to go through the ‘dunki routes’ seeking a better life. They are routed through South American countries like Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Columbia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico. The perilous routes take them through jungles, exposing them to dangerous forests and criminal gangs, only to be arrested as soon as they cross the Mexican border. Lost in all this depressing information is the fact that in 2023-24, about 7000 affluent individuals with well established businesses left India for Singapore, Dubai, US and UK, to embark on ‘global diversification’. They sought to invest in private debt, cryptocurrency, and tech stocks like Meta-Google, which India’s regulatory system prevents them from doing. Though the numbers are small, their impact is as damaging as the illegal migrants. The reason behind HNIs leaving India seems to be similar; better standards of living, better educational and health facilities, political dynamics, better work-life balance, escape from social stigmas, and eventual citizenship. Our country needs to address these issues urgently, apart from tackling the US
government.
Finally, there is the ‘tariff war’ launched by Donald Trump. He is even losing staunch supporters like Fox News, with the struggling economy taking a hit due to his on-again, off-again tariff threats that have businesses paralyzed and investors watching their portfolios diving daily. The first criticism is that the tariffs are not applied uniformly, but rather influenced by politics. The, often illogical, penalties are predicted to set off a world recession. Fortunately, most economists anticipate the India will not be hit too hard given the nature of trade with the US and the various options available. According to Professor Rogoff, though tariffs hurt both parties, the one imposing them stands to lose the most. At the end of the day, it serves no purpose other than causing financial chaos, and triggering a
recession.
As Lord Palmerston said, in politics there are no permanent friends or enemies; only permanent interests. In this case, the question is whose interests?
(The author is the Past President of the Goa State IMA, the founder member and Past President of VHAG, and a member of the
National Executive
Committee of the VHAI.)
