Is “Dear Friend” Trump Destroying India-US Partnership?Will Modi Surrender?

0:00 Welcome to Conversations. I'm Mtad Darhan, your host. And today I'm going to talk to you about I I I want to raise this question very seriously that is Donald Trump deliberately undermining India US strategic partnership. That is the question that I want to re understand that have we underestimate overestimated US India relations and the strength of US India relations and the strength of America's need for India as a strategic partner to contain China to balance China. Have we overestimated that? That is the question that I would like to answer today with you. And uh uh I'm going to show you how in the past

0:47 few days, in the last week or so, Donald Trump has taken several steps against which can only be seen as undermining India or being negative towards India or exposing or revealing how he thinks about India. Uh under Joe Biden, uh Prime Minister Modi and India had a honeymoon. Prime Minister Modi was invited to the United States. He was asked to speak to the congress that joined uh you know the two houses the senate and the house of the congress in which he said something great you know that AI doesn't mean artificial intelligence AI means America and India you remember all those great speeches given by prime minister Narendra Modi then he had a state dinner and then he had a private lunch with Joe

1:35 and Jill Biden and then there was this big event in New York with with the with the diaspora. So Modi was celebrated under the Biden administration, Joe Biden went to India, all kinds of things happened and even though there was the Panot case going on, Biden never spoke about it publicly even though Trudeau did bring it up uh in the Canadian Parliament. And so yet in spite of all of that, India was saying that Donald Trump and Narendra Modi are great friends, good friends and their friendship will cement the relationship of the United States. Uh Dr. Jay Shankar when he came here for the inauguration of Donald Trump when he was asked why Prime Minister Modi was not invited, his answer was that we can

2:20 see the charisma of the two people when they are together. Well, we have seen no charisma in the Donald Trump uh second term. Modi was not even invited to the inauguration of Donald Trump. Xi Jinping was the first person, the first foreign head that Donald Trump invited, but he did not come. He sent his second in command. So, Donald Trump did not even invite Narendra Modi to his inauguration. He invited many heads of states. He invited uh the the prime minister of Italy, the president of Argentina, even small countries like Hungary, all of them they were they were his friends and they were invited but prime minister Modi was not invited but India did not

3:06 get the message because these days the Indian media and the Indian foreign affairs and foreign policy has only one goal that is promoting Prime Minister Modi rather than promoting India's interest. So I'm going to show you three or four things that uh uh Donald Trump has done in the last uh 10 days. Uh and uh that raises the serious question whether India and uh US are still strategic partners. I think the answer to that will come when Donald Trump visits India uh for the quad summit. So let me share with you some of the points that I have that I want to point out to you. As you are all aware, I'm learning how to use AI. So, today I got AI to create

3:53 this graphic for me. So, undermining Trump measures, it didn't do a good job undermining India. The Trump measures that are undermining India. That's what I wanted them to do. These were the four points that I listed. Number one, tariffs and trade. We will talk about it. We've already talked about it. Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on India which are the highest. If you can see the tariffs on India in South Asia 25% plus penalties we have not learned what those penalties are going to be with regards to uh purchasing Russian oil and Russian arms. I will talk about the Russian oil shortly because it clearly appears that India is going to abandon his so-called trusted friend Russia and India is going to bend the knee. Narendra is going to

4:40 surrender to Donald Trump because all Indian oil companies the state that is the government controlled companies has stopped buying oil from Russia this week. Uh we will talk a little bit more about that but look at the tariffs. India gets 25 plus penalties. Pakistan gets the best deal so far. 19% plus a joint venture into oil excavation and oil drilling if there is oil in Pakistan. Bangladesh gets 20% and Sri Lanka gets 20%. One area where all these three countries I don't know much about Sri Lankan exports but all the top three South Asian countries compete is in garments and clearly now Pakistan has advantage over India as well as

5:25 Bangladesh. Bangladesh is the leader in exports of garments uh to Europe and to US uh that is tailored garments, readym made garments and stuff. Uh and so they are going to have a a major advantage over India but that's not all. It's not that if you look at the deal itself it looks terrible but it is quite possible that India might finally negotiate. I think the negotiations are still going on even though both the visits have been cancelled. Uh the the US delegation which was supposed to come to India next week is not coming. The Indian delegation was supposed to come this week to the US is not coming but they're still talking virtually on Zoom etc. So I think that once India completely

6:11 surrenders and bends the knee to Donald Trump when Narendra surrenders and stops buying Russian oil completely which is what already is happening uh then I think then we will forget about the penalties uh and then they will just talk about the 25% tariffs. I think by the time Donald Trump will be in much better mood he would have bragged on more than one occasion saying India has already he's talking about it. Uh you can see the headlines. Let me just show you the headlines that Donald Trump is saying a good step. Donald Trump on reports of India halting Russian oil imports. So so Donald Trump is already celebrating that he has. So his mood is going to get better and it's quite possible that India could end up getting the best deal in South Asia which is 15%.

6:58 Because India has not finished its negotiations. Pakistan and Bangladesh both have finished their negotiations. So that the final deal that Pakistan got is 19, Bangladesh got 20. What the rate that India is not final, it is an interim rate. So that is the thing. But then we have something else that Donald Trump is now doing with India which is penalties and secondary sanctions. So Donald Trump has threatened secondary sanctions on India for buying Russian oil. And I think if India goes ahead and buys any more Russian weapons, the there is a law in America, I forget what it's called, comska, something which basically imposes sanctions on countries which buy defense equipment from Russia. So when India bought S400, India was given an exemption by the Biden

7:43 administration uh or the Trump I don't remember when India may have bought but I know this much that when India bought S400s from Russia, India was given an exemption. Turkey was not given if you recall. So we will see if going forward if India buys especially if India buys SU57 I don't think Donald Trump is going to give any exemption uh to India and sanctions will automatically which are automatic actually uh they are applied automatically the president has to stop them and I think that those laws will immediately kick in. Uh so but the p the secondary sanctions today they continue. So for example you can look here uh

8:28 where are they? So here is the news eight US sanctions eight Indian companies this is from the Indian express five Indian nationals as part of latest action against Iran's. So these are the companies which are dealing with Iran and Iranian oil. another good friend of India that India has abandoned because of pressure from from Donald Trump. This was in the first term itself that India stopped buying Iranian oil in 2018 or 19 and now India is not talking about Chabahar port because uh Rubio has not given India exemption to continue its collaboration with Iran on the Chabahar port and as long as Iran and the US don't sign a deal I don't think any country is going to get any exemption from the US uh for dealing

9:16 with Iranian oil. And the third thing that he has done is uh I said penalties and sanctions. So the fourth one is he's making all these diplomatic jibes at India. You know it's like the Indian economy is is a dead economy. He compared Indian and Russian economies and said they are uh dead economies. He also uh said tried to make this joke that if oil is discovered in Pakistan maybe Pakistan can sell uh this oil to India. So he's being very very shall we say critical or trolling India at many levels and uh the series of uh provocations from Donald Trump towards India are not ending there. As you may

10:02 have already learned, the number of visa rejections for Indians who are applying for education and coming for student visas has increased significantly. A lot of people have been given uh rejections even people who have scholarships in very good universities. I have students contacting me and uh I don't know what to say to them. I mean I spoke to her some of them I know some who have got visas and some who have not got visas and uh they they are depressed they've been working some of them have been planning for years to come to America and they have got admissions they've worked very hard they've got scholarships from US universities but visas have been denied to them uh and

10:47 then the H1B issue JD Vance the vice president has launched a massive attack on Microsoft for example Example, Microsoft recently fired 9,000 people uh and then applied for 6,000 H1B visas and JD Vance is saying if you don't need people, you're firing them. So why are you bringing people from abroad? Why don't you hire the people you fired? Well, obviously they're looking for different capabilities and different skill sets obviously. But nevertheless, uh there is this huge attack and Donald Trump actually made an announcement saying that companies should stop uh building factories in China and sending jobs to Indian workers. And in that he meant two things that uh those who are

11:35 hiring Indians in India uh and those who are hiring Indians and bringing them here with H1 visas. So there is this whole assault going on. It's very difficult for me to figure out what that means. We have not heard anything from the Indian prime minister. I was looking at his uh uh Twitter uh account and there's nothing on this issue at all. Uh he seems to be living in a different world altogether. Uh and uh he's neither addressed any of these questions. uh but uh the Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randir Jaisal was asked these questions. He had nothing much to say. uh but uh there are four Indian

12:21 companies uh who have uh stopped buying oil and even Marco Rubio was on television and he said that India buying Russia's oil is a source of irritation for the administration and so they better stop or they are going to get penalties. There are penalties that Donald Trump has threatened in the context of bricks, in the context of ddollarization and now in the context of the Russian oil. Uh and I think Donald Trump's mood with regards to Russia has changed. Uh today he ordered uh America's nuclear submarines to go towards Russia. Uh I don't know what the what what the point is. Are they going to threaten Russia? Uh and uh I I I really don't know what they hope to

13:07 achieve by sending uh American submarines to Russia. Russia has unleashed more attacks on Kiev and the cities and uh Ukraine since Donald Trump became president. If you look at the last 6 months of Joe Biden and the first six months of Donald Trump, you will see that Russia has attacked Ukraine more than than now. I mean, he's attacked it now than in the past. So uh I'm not fully cognizant of what else Donald Trump is going to be doing with regards to India. The optimist the optimistic view is that sometime by September India and Russia uh US will agree upon a trade deal and

13:53 so the reciprocal tariffs will be reduced. See, Trump could have said, like he said with Mexico, that I'm suspending the application of reciprocal tariffs until the deal and negotiations are over. He has suspended it for China until 12th of August and he has suspended it with Mexico for several weeks. He could have done that for India as a friend. He could have said India is my friend. Modi is my friend and Modi just called me and spoke to me and so I have decided to give India a break and so we will not impose the tariffs till the deal is over even if it takes till September. But Donald Trump seems to be very irritated with the protracted nature of the negotiations. India

14:39 started negotiating before everybody in February and the negotiations are still ongoing uh and they have not reached any deal yet. uh but the biggest I think movement that we have seen in the past five months is India stopping buying Russian oil. Not only that there's an interesting report I was reading in uh NDTV I think uh which shows that three ships full of Russian oil which was which were heading towards India uh suddenly got diverted because of the sanctions. So these ships are now not going towards India but uh they are going one one is going to Egypt one is going to go to China and so they basically India said we will not take

15:26 the oil that they had probably already ordered. So at least on that issue you can clearly say that Narendra has surrendered and so Modi is bending the knee and hopefully there will be some gains for India uh from that uh and but it raises a lot of bigger questions these days every day some Indian reporter some Indian press person some retired general some keeps saying this which I think is absolutely to say that oh oh we can't trust America well can Russia now trust India because India is now abandoning its best friend for its own national interest. So if India can abandon its friends for national interest then why do you expect the United States to uh to

16:13 hold up to its friendship against its own national interest? What India America is doing now is in America's national interest. India has been taking America for a ride exporting $85 billion and then imposing huge tariffs. Some of the tariffs that India has imposed on American goods are in the range of 150%. Why? Because they're blocking everything that is coming from the US. That's why the US is barely able to hit $45 billion in exports. Most of these countries which whose economies have grown by exporting to the US in the past 20 years including China, including Japan, including South Korea, Malaysia, all of these countries have been imposing sanctions or tariffs on

16:59 the US. Now finally, Vietnam has gone to zero, Indonesia has gone to zero, uh Europe has gone to zero, the entire European Union has gone to 0% tariffs. We'll see what where India lands eventually uh with tariffs. But I think it is fair enough to ask this question. Is India and US strategic partnership still solid? I don't know. There is no discussion. No one is asking Donald Trump about that because the focus is so much on the tariffs and in India of course they haven't yet learned how to do press conferences. So prime minister Modi will never take a question from his reporters because the moment he has a press conference the first question will be why didn't you go to Manipur you went

17:45 to Ghana you went to Maldives you went to Trinidad but you never went to Manipur you never went to Pahelam you went to Bihar and so he doesn't want to answer all these questions he he knows that he's going to look very foolish because there'll be lots and lots of questions about cast uh about temple and mosque and this and that and so he doesn't want to be in a position where he's trapped into giving an answer. Uh unlike Donald Trump who he who will take endless amount of questions. So I'm hoping that reporters will ask Donald Trump uh at least will get some answers on what is happening to the India US strategic partnership. Marco Rubio was on TV and he says India is our ally. India is our important strategic partner but one of the irritants is the buying

18:32 of Russian oil. I'm going to leave you with this thought. Already four Indian companies, let me tell you what their names are. Uh these are all government control agency. These not uh uh these are not uh private companies. So these are the four companies that I want to talk about. The companies are the country state refineries. Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and the Mangalore Refinery Petroleum Chemicals. These are the four companies which completely stopped buying Russian oil and these are all controlled by the government. So the Indian government has basically bend the

19:18 knee to Donald Trump. They have surrendered under threats of sanctions. All these talk about we are sovereign, we have strategic autonomy. No, these are not international court orders. This is not like an arrest warrant for Netanyahu which is coming from international criminal court which has international law behind it. Okay, which of course India doesn't respect. But this is not an international law. This is Donald Trump. This is the US president unilaterally imposing its will on other countries. That is what US sanctions are. Secondary sanctions. All of this uh is by the US like the European Union imposed sanctions on some

20:03 Indian oil refineries. Similarly, Donald Trump is now imposing these sanctions and these companies are surrendering to Donald Trump. So this surrender is going to make Donald Trump very happy. But it raises the questions of equal partnership between India and the US. It raises the questions of how strategically important the US is. India is to the US. Uh have Indian uh Indian experts overestimated uh India's importance in the Indo-Pacific? Is Donald Trump thinking that having direct relations with China makes India less important? And uh and in another interesting development, Donald Trump has been building close

20:50 relations with Pakistan, giving Pakistan a special rate much below India's uh promising to have some kind of collaboration with Pakistan. Apparently there's going to be a US Pakistan summit in August. So in spite of India's huge efforts, if you listen to Dr. J. Shanka's speech in the parliament which actually Narendra Modi has praised. Uh let me show it to you. Uh as to how disconnected uh from the world people appear to be at least Prime Minister Modi is uh he's pretending as if none of this is happening and because there are no press conferences, no reporters asking him any of these questions. So this is Narendra Modi's uh exac account. Nothing about

21:35 Trump, nothing about sanctions, nothing about this. So if you blow, this is what he's saying. Dr. Janka G's exceptional speech in the Raja Sabha emphasize India's efforts to make terrorism a subject of global attention. He also talked about India's fitting response to operation Synindur and how we are furthering the safety of our citizens, Rajya Sabha during special discuss India success etc. So this is a speech given by Dr. Jay Shankar in which he tried to argue as to how India has tried to to paint Pakistan as a terrorist supporting state and isolate uh Pakistan from the international. But the question that is not being answered

22:22 is has this effort been successful? Everything that Donald Trump has done with Pakistan so far suggests that Indian diplomacy on that particular issue has failed both at the UN and with the US. We have we haven't seen anything big happen between Pakistan and Europe. We've not seen anything big happen between Pakistan and others. There was some talk about Russia also getting close to Pakistan uh and Pakist delegation from Russia did go to Pakistan. And then there were the fake reports about an agreement etc. But then nothing has happened in the last month and a half between Russia and Pakistan. The entire focus has been here Pakistan nominating uh Donald Trump for for a new

23:08 Nobel Prize. Why is Prime Minister Modi not supporting it? If Donald Trump is such a good friend of his, why is he not supporting Donald Trump's uh bid for a Nobel Prize? Good question, isn't it? If Donald Trump was my friend, I would support his bid for a Nobel Prize, but he's not my friend. He's my president. So, I will not break the laws and I will not uh undermine him directly, but I will criticize him because I don't think some of his policies are in the interest of my country. But nevertheless, so now I'm going to stop. This is the comments that I wanted to make and uh I will be happy to take your comments and your

23:54 questions. Uh and if there are any sensible questions I'll be happy to answer. Yes. Uh Vivido PTE. Yes. Pakistan's trade with India with US is only 7.2 or 7.3 billion. It is 5% of India's. India is about 130 to$140 billion. So 20 times what Pakistan does and Pakistan's exports are 5 billion, imports are just $2 billion. That's all it imports from America. Uh and so the deficit is just $3 billion. So it's not a major trading partner. But Pakistan did some very smart things besides nominating Donald Trump for president. Aimuner was the first to do it. But Pakistan has also

24:41 opened its agricultural sector for Donald Trump. So Pakistan will now import cotton from the US and Pakistan will also import soya beans from the US. So those two items are going to be open and those are big things that the US exports. So it is quite possible that those that deficit will reduce that the US has the $3 billion deficit. We will know by maybe by December. I will I will take keep an eye on that for sure. So yes, it's not a big trading partner, but uh I think Donald Trump is using Pakistan to send messages to India saying that uh uh if you don't basically do what I want you to do then I will go

25:27 with Pakistan. Uh because India is so obsessed with Pakistan just day and night it's all about Pakistan. So I think he's doing that deliberately. Uh uh Arnab Sen Gupta uh yeah I'm the only guy who is like you should listen to all your academics in India. Every academic has a normative preference. It it is not necessarily a bias. Everything that I told you is is evidence-based. You saw all the articles that I showed you. You go and read. I said Donald Trump imposed the highest tariffs on in South Asia on India. You saw that 25% on India, 20 on Bangladesh, 20 on Sri Lanka, 19 on

26:15 Pakistan. Threaten only India with penalties. That is a fact. India has surrendered after the threat. Indian oil companies have stopped buying oil. That is a fact. There is an Indian newspaper. Go and check. Uh India has also uh not responded to any of his other penalty related threats. That is also a fact. Uh India is supposed to be a strategic partner. It's a fair enough question to ask. Uh because not only that further secondary sanctions have been posted on Indian companies and Indians, I showed you that. If you think all of this is biased, then something is wrong with you my friend. Go and look at facts. What are you thinking about you? The problem with Indian foreign policy

27:01 is that they are into stuff like this. Let me show you. I didn't want to show you but now that we got this kind of a question, I will show you. This is what Indians think is great foreign policy. This is Modi in Trinidad. This is what Indians think is great foreign policy. not taking a press conference and articulating in detail what is India's national interest you leave that all to Dr. J Shanka that is India's idea of foreign policy that is what Indians value and if if I were to keep showing things like this you would say oh my god you are so nonbias let me show you another thing that Indians like to see this is it Modi getting award

27:46 from Ghana this is what productivity apps should look like listen thousands of reviews they don't lie John or GV and pride and respect. Really, this is what you guys think is nonbiased reporting. I'm sorry to say that. My questions are very serious that Donald Trump has shown disregard for India's national interest has imposed his will on India. India with much talk about how Russia is a great friend of India has abandoned Russia. Yes, in self-interest but it also shows that India does not

28:34 have strategic autonomy and it is not able to make sovereign decisions under Prime Minister Modi. Whether you like it or not, that is a fact. Wandep Kumar good question you you always ask brilliant question if India breaks away from Russia what will be India's role in Asia what is India's role in Asia today there are wars all over the region what is India doing Gaza what has India done nothing it is Colombia it is South Africa who are taking the lead on that issue that is West Asia in East Asia Taiwan is a big issue. What is India doing? Any leadership role there? No. Nothing.

29:21 India's idea of diplomacy is Modi going to Maldives. Anybody can go to Maldives. What's the big deal? India has no role in the leadership of Asia. Asia is led by US and China. The battle for leadership in Asia is between US and China. US has allies in Asia. India has zero allies in Asia. India has zero friends. Japan is an ally is a treaty partner of the US. South Korea is a treaty partner. Philippines is a treaty partner. Australia, which is on the periphery of Asia, is a treaty partner.

30:07 America is committed to Taiwan. So America is the leader in Asia followed by China. China has a belt and road initiative which nearly every country except India is part of it. Look at in South Asia, Pakistan and Afghanistan has now signed up for belt and road initiative. Nepal is part of belt and road initiative. Bangladesh is part of belt and road initiative. Sri Lanka is part of belt and road. India is not the leader of South Asia. Forget about the rest of Asia. India has no role. If you had a free and critical media in India like Americas, look at the way people American reporters keep targeting Donald

30:53 Trump on on Epstein issue and so on and so forth. These are people who go with Donald Trump to Scotland on his plane and then ask him critical questions. It is absolutely unthinkable in India. No media travels with Modi on the plane. I didn't understand your question my uncle Jane uh he may not have received an official uh the US government may not have received an official statement from India. So India is going to stop doing

31:38 what Russia is doing and pretend that it is not listening to America. So when America actually comes to say we are going to put penalties on you for buying Russian oil then they say no no no no we stop buying Russian oil but they're not going to go forward and say because they have to pretend that Modi is strong. So the in order to save Modi's image, they're going to make this stupid diplomatic error by not informing us formally that we heard what you said and we have stopped buying because that would mean you have bend the knee right so but when Donald Trump will come to impose penalties then they'll say oh we don't buy a Russian oil anymore we stop we stopped in July itself we bought nothing in August and you'll see that by the end of August when the t

32:25 Mandep Kumar India has been in deep trouble for a long time. Uh it is stuck between us and China and so the moment Donald Trump started acting tough uh Deshankar ran. Look let me give you an example of how brain dead Indian media is and how brain dead Modi's supporters are. What does Modi say about Pahelam that we will punish terrorists and we will punish the supporters of terrorists. He said that in the parliament also just now we will not distinguish between terrorists and sponsors of terrorism. So let's assume that India is right and the Pelgam attack was done by Pakistani terrorists

33:11 as this encounter this Mahadev operation whatever it was they said they now after two and a half months they found and they killed all the terrorists who are still in India interesting isn't it anyway so Bahalgam is done by Pakistani terrorists so India holds Pakistan responsible and attacks Pakistan with operation synindu And who supports Pakistan in operation Synindur? Is there any doubt in anybody's mind that China supported Pakistan? The China's jet fighters were shooting at India's jet fighters. China's missiles were being launched. That China was providing realtime intelligence to Pakistan. China was actively actively involved in the war

33:57 with India on those four days. Is there anybody in India who does not know that or does not think so? Just ask even Rickshaw on the road and they will tell you China right and within weeks after that first Rajnat Singh goes to Beijing and then Ja Shankar goes and they don't say a word about China's role in operation Sinduru. Not one word out of even out of Modi loves why didn't Dashanka tell China how can

34:44 we be normalize your relationship you are giving weapons to our enemies who are supporting terrorism in India that you are giving them no nothing like that because they are stuck between the US if US abandons them they they can't abandon China. So they are running from pillar to post and they talk about sovereignty and strategic autonomy. This is just absolute nonsense. This is absolute nonsense. So there's no such thing. This we should keep those talks for domestic campaigns, you know. And so the for anybody who is a neutral observer who does not have vested interest in promoting one man or

35:31 one party they can see very clearly that India is completely ignoring China's role in operation Sindur. India sent all these delegates out there parliamentary delegates to target Pakistan. Why didn't they also talk about China's role? You know how many times China has used its veto power to protect Pakistan in the security council. What happened at FATF? India went to FATF to convince them to put Pakistan on the gray list. China, Turkey and Japan voted against India. That is a failure of foreign policy. Uh

36:19 no no Batman now Batman this the word Batman is there in that uh thank you very much Mandep is also saying Batman thanks to Hindu Batman thanks for India acting foolishly and letting China support Pakistan Rahul Gandhi said that there is no two front They have both become one during operation Synindur. Look, India did very well on 9th and 10th. Okay. India won the war. There's no doubt about it. But Pakistan was able to stand up because of China's support. And India is not saying a word about it. India's pretending as if it didn't happen because it wants to improve

37:04 relations with China. Because Donald Trump is no more a friend of Modi. Yes, I have to do this on Turkey. Thanks for reminding me, Mandep. I have finally got in touch with the Turkish ambassador. I'm trying to invite him to come on the show so we can hear it from them directly as to what their role is, what they see as their role in the Indo-Pacific. Anyway, so if there are no more questions and comments, uh I will be happy to take your leave. Uh and I plan to do uh for those of you who are in India and who are watching this through VPN, I plan to do this whole show again in Hindi because this particular channel Narendra Modi is scared of this channel. The entire BJP is scared of this

37:50 channel. So they have blocked me in India but I have another channel and uh I will do it in Hindi on that channel. Uh and so I will see you then. Thank you very much working. Uh oh, Batman, you have a very good observation. I want you to go to Foreign Affairs magazine and look at the latest article by Ashley Telis in which he it just got published two days ago on July 30. I'm going to do a review sometime soon because it's oneplus 3 article. So an article with the responses in which he has accused India of being a delusional power. delusional power.

38:36 Ashley tells us, "Take care. Bye, guys." Oh, good job, Mandi.