The power games behind renaming places

India could offer some renaming mentorship and guidance to the US in exchange for tariff concessions

- SANDIP ROY

True confession—I do not think I could identify Albania on the map. Or Armenia. Or Azerbaijan.

But then I am not the President of the United States claiming to have brokered peace between Azerbaijan and Albania.

At a European conclave in Copenhagen held in early October, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama told French President Emmanuel Macron jokingly that he should apologise because he did not congratulate them “on the peace deal that President Trump made between Albania and Azerbaijan”, while Ilham Aliyev, the President of Azerbaijan, chuckled.

The joke was there is no conflict between Albania and Azerbaijan. They don't even share a border. Donald Trump had confused Armenia and Albania. Armenia and Azerbaijan were the countries that signed a pact in the White House this August promising to end decades of fighting.

Trump sometimes calls Armenia Albania. On another occasion at a press conference with the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer he bragged, "We settled Aber-baijan and Albania”, mangling the name of one country and misidentifying the other.

Trump's geographical gaffe has caused much snickering even among those who themselves would not be able to point out Albania, Armenia and Azerbaijan on a map. But they also miss the larger point.

To Trump, the actual names of the countries aren’t as important as the peace deals he claims to broker among them. They are just shapes on a map, notches on his belt as part of his Mission Possible to garner a Nobel Peace Prize. The Albanian Prime Minister should be careful. If he pokes too much fun at the US President, Trump could well rename his country Armenia.