No Brokerhood!

India needs to draw the red line on issues of national interest even at the cost of displeasing a temperamental American president

- Seema Guha

WHEN US President Donald Trump claimed credit for persuading India and Pakistan to “stop fighting” and threatened to end trade with both countries if they did not fall in line, not once but twice in Washington and in Riyadh, it wasn’t just the bravado that caught New Delhi off guard—it was the framing.

“I said, come on, we're going to do a lot of trade with you guys. Let's stop it. Let’s stop it. If you stop it, we'll do a trade. If you don’t stop it, we're not going to do any trade,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “And all of a sudden they said, ‘I think we're going to stop,” he added, according to reports in the American media. He admitted there were other reasons too, “... but trade is a big one.” Pakistan’s leaders praised the US for the ceasefire and thanked Trump profusely. India was not amused.

Once again, India was being bracketed with Pakistan, a comparison odious to New Delhi and something on which it had spent diplomatic capital for over two decades to overcome. Now when all seemed to go swimmingly well for India, Trump threw cold water on this assumption. For Indian policymakers, the statement was more than a diplomatic faux pas—it was a symptom of a deeper problem.

Questions came thick and fast from analysts. Where had Indian foreign policy gone wrong? Is India back to square one, being bracketed with Pakistan? What about India’s comprehensive and global partnership with the US? European partners, as well as leaders in the Middle East and the Global South, called for quick de-escalation. None of this was of use when push came to shove.