Vishal Sharma
US President, Donald J Trump’s UN speech in UNGA was as usual a rant that the world’s, quite frankly, been fed up listening for a while now. It is reported that his teleprompter malfunctioned. If it is so, then it is likely that he improvised and hence no wonder his favourite one liners and scathing indictment of some countries he does not see eye to eye with on many issues tumbled out of his lips.
But what struck a discordant note amongst attendees of the European continent and the international media was his openly berating the continent on unchecked upswell of migration and going as far as to say that these countries are going to hell.
He talked up his playbook for stopping illegal migration into the US and and in a sense advocated that as an ideal model for others to follow.
Whatever may be the reasons behind spike in migrations to Europe and how the continent is responding or has chosen to respond to it, his denouncing the continent in the manner in which he did from the UN platform was not received well. It was a crass comment, and lacked the finesse coming as it did from the US president, no less, and from the podium as hallowed as the UN.
His reference to Russia Ukraine war in the context of what has kept the war going was even grotesque. He called India and China as the funders of the war on European continent. A bizarre proposition that he has repeated so many times in the lead up to his UNGA speech that his MAGA base has started taking it as a gospel truth. Even the dumb witted NATO chief Mark Rutte has also been parroting the same line in the EU; a bloc whose entire energy needs till today are met by Russian oil/energy imports.
Trump called upon the EU to step up and cut back on Russian oil/energy imports, but even he knows that his calls will go unheeded, as Europe can’t cut off energy ties with Russia suddenly and especially unless it has reliable alternative energy sources to fall back upon. What Europe fears the most is its citizens facing a severe winter without Russian energy to heat their homes?
Trump did it for theatrics as he so often does on all important global issues. He had to repeat this message for his European brothers just to build enough insurance for future against any possible backlash from them should something go wrong on the war front in Russo- Ukranian theatre. He wants to retain some leverage to put blame on the Europeans; in the event of future setbacks on war front, his defence will likely be if you are not willing to cut off energy ties with Russia, how can you expect the US to lead the war effort? -you can’t fund Russia’s war effort through energy imports from her on the one hand and fight her alongside Ukrainians on the other. In other words, he wants the Europeans under his heels.
His obsession with ending Indo- Pak war in May this year was also part of his propaganda speech. He unabashedly repeated his claim of having brokered peace between the two nuclear armed countries in the May conflict. This claim he has repeated- God knows how many times- despite full knowing that India has repudiated his claim in this regard. And a person no less than PM Modi himself in a statement in the Parliament has clarified that no leader of the world had any role in facilitating pause in hostilities between the two countries. It is widely reported in the global media that in his phone conversation with Trump during G7 summit this year, PM Modi told him about India’s red lines on Indo Pak relations. He is also reported to have told him that US had no role in the pause of hostilities that came about after 4 day conflict. India’s stated position is/has always been that the pause in hostilities was bilaterally achieved by the two countries. Even Pak defence minister has admitted that India was averse to any third party intervention in the conflict.
President Trump’s pursuit of Nobel Prize has blinded him to a severe defect in his personality; which is that just because he feels something is right-it does not mean that it is right; just because he thinks that something is true- it does not mean that it is necessarily true. He is forever trying to create alternative truth and alternative reality and hoping that others would align themselves to his alternative world view. He is unmindful of the fact he is redefining the very scope of the word- hypocrisy. What was seen as playfulness in his character in early days of Trump presidency 2.0 appears to be some kind of a pathological disorder that his doctors may have unwittingly normalised.
Trump has found a willing fellow traveller in Mark Rutte, who is even more hypocrite than him. Rutte these days is so busy doing Trump’s PR job and spreading canards that he has no time to attend to the air space violations reported by Poland and Estonia. Poland and Estonia are worried about Russia’s invasion of their airspace and want NATO to act seriously. Rutte, as NATO Chief, should have been busy putting together a NATO’s response to Russian violation of NATO counties’ airspace, which is what his primary responsibility is.
But Mark Rutte is doing everything except what he is expected to do as NATO Chief. He has even time to give interview to CNN on Trump’s doubling of tariffs on Indian imports to 50% due to India’s purchase of Russian oil- something that is frankly outside his remit.
“This immediately impacts Russia because Delhi is now on the phone with Putin in Moscow, and Narendra Modi asks him, ‘Hey, I support you, but could you explain to me the strategy because I have now been hit by 50% tariffs by the United States’,” Rutte is reported to have said in the interview published recently.
“The statement is factually incorrect and entirely baseless,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a regular briefing. “At no point has Prime Minister Modi spoken with President Putin in the manner suggested. No such conversation has taken place.”
In response to a request from Reuters, a NATO spokesperson is reported to have said: “We have nothing further to add to what the NATO Secretary General said.” Someone needs to seriously tell Rutte about his job description.
India is showing a great deal of strategic patience with regard to its dealing with the US despite the fact that the latter has chosen to take New Delhi for a ride. If the slew of measures taken by the US even after it appeared that the chill in relations between the two countries is thawing when Trump wished PM Modi on his birthday tells us anything it is that his sweet talk on Indo- US relation is nothing but a con job. The fact is Trump is playing India. It wants to humour India while holding a dagger on his jugular vein. US’s economic strangling of India is happening at a breakneck speed and now there are reports of heightened military activity in Diego Garcia and US special forces arriving in Bangladesh. These incidents can’t be mere coincidences. Every nation is an enemy country till it does not only say but proves by its actions that it is a friendly country. India does not have to look any further than Chanakya, who said; till the enemy’s weakness is known, he should be kept on friendly terms. But once an enemy’s weakness is known, he should be struck at his weak point. India’s journey from strategic patience to strategic action has to be short. If we keep waiting for the right time, the right time may never arrive.
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