Joys of Trumplomacy: India & the world are learning US President’s 99 moods and 1 goal

Public, loud, upfront, filled with impropriety and high praise sometimes laced with insults. This is what we call Trumplomacy. But the larger objective is the same: American supremacy.

Illustration: Shruti Naithani/ThePrint

In the name of making America great again, Donald Trump is reviving anti-Americanism in far parts of the world where it had gone into dormancy. His playbook so far has been to publicly ridicule and humiliate allies, and flirt with adversaries, theirs and his country’s.

For us, in India, his loudly and repeatedly claiming credit for stopping the war through intervention and mediation has reopened the old wounds of hyphenation. Those on the Left and in the larger anti-Modi ecosystem are smirking in quiet celebration: what did you expect when you supped with the devil? And who knows, if he does visit India to attend the Quad Summit later this year, he may (more likely than not) make a stopover in Pakistan too. For him, old rules of diplomacy do not apply. If India is irritated by what it calls hyphenation, it is India’s problem. Why should it make the rules for him?

In at least four statements he has mentioned Narendra Modi and Field Marshal Asim Munir in the same sentence. The latest, on 19 June, where he said the Pakistani general, very smart man, came for lunch to the White House and India’s Prime Minister Modi, fantastic man, a great friend of mine etc., etc., etc.

Here we were slipping into neurosis because he was re-hyphenating us with Pakistan. Now he is hyphenating Modi with Munir. What a calamity. I would counsel a deep breath, some restraint, a rethink, and also a smile. If Trump is hyphenating Munir with Modi, who should be the one complaining most of all? Shouldn’t it be poor Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister who gave Munir his fifth star and field marshal’s baton? At least on paper, if it is worth anything in that constitution, the field marshal still reports to the prime minister.

Even during the Op Sindoor facilitation (word I prefer to the more triggering mediation or intervention), Sharif only heard from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. His counterpart, to that extent, was S. Jaishankar, the External Affairs Minister of India. Sharif should’ve been the guy crying about this hyphenation. He won’t dare. No American leader has called out the Pakistani reality and hypocrisy as rudely and truthfully as Trump.

Think this over calmly. For decades India has maintained that Pakistani democracy is a farce and the real power resides in its army. In his apparent love fest with Pakistan, Trump is only endorsing that position. In a way he is doing your job, endorsing your deeply held belief. Trump’s predecessors were not foolish. They knew this reality and yet kept on batting to (or at least pretend to) restore and strengthen democracy in Pakistan across these decades.

For Trump, those old-fashioned pretences are, to use his favourite word now on X/TruthSocial, especially when upbraiding his own loyal base, “bullshit”. He talks straight. No bullshit. He will deal with whoever calls the shots in any country. That, in the course of time, should be India’s approach too.

If Trump runs his domestic politics through clumsily written, stream-of-consciousness social media posts, with grammar and spelling so bad he would crash out of our UPSC prelims, he sees no reason why diplomacy should get any privileged treatment. He’s bored with the old diplomacy of subtle hints and persuasion, one thing in private, and another in public.

The upshot is, you can’t trust him to keep any confidences. See, for example NATO Secretary General (and former Dutch prime minister) Mark Rutte’s fawning note to Trump which he immediately screenshotted and made public. The Europeans were shocked.

This is exactly what he wants: shock and awe. The world must feel his, and America’s power, and acknowledge it. Rutte only went to an extreme in his sycophancy by topping up his note with asking NATO leaders to see Trump as their “daddy”.

Any time you feel aggrieved, check out how he’s treated all his closest allies. He invited Canada to become the US’s state and get full security, including from “Russian and Chinese ships surrounding you,” zero tariffs, and low taxes. He called Justin Trudeau governor, and repeated the 51st state idea to new prime minister Mark Carney. Even when he said never, Trump responded, “never say never”. Can you imagine Trump sitting with Modi and saying, I think you should resolve that thousand-year war over Kashmir, each side keep what you have and be happy. He’s said worse to Canada, his treaty-bound ally.

Trump’s is an insurgency against conventional diplomacy. When he wants Hamas to stop fighting, he says Gaza will be gifted to America and he will build a great riviera there. He posts AI-generated memes of chilling on that beachfront. He’s negotiating with Iran, but when Israeli attacks are going well, wants a piece of the action and carries out his own bombing.

Then, he orders his closest ally Israel to call their aircraft back with their bombs after making a friendly wave at the Iranians. Now he wants to resume talking with Iran, and expand Abraham Accords, ideally with the Saudis coming on board.

He humiliates Zelenskyy in public, pretends to dump him, insists he pay for protection through a minerals deal, praises Putin to scare NATO, and then gets irritated with him instead. Now he’s getting the Europeans to pay for new weaponry, especially Patriot missiles with detained Russian reserves. It’s the same deal that Joe Biden was finalising.

The substance is the same, but the style is entirely different. This is what we call Trumplomacy. Public, loud, upfront, filled with impropriety and high praise sometimes laced with insults. But the larger objective is his idea of American supremacy. His base loves him for this. Their recent anger is over purely domestic issues, like his refusal to release the Epstein files.

US’s friends can’t dump him like jilted lovers. They need America. Just this week The Wall Street Journal carried a brilliant story with insights on how the Europeans are winning him over: with gifts for family and friends, smiles at insults and oodles of flattery. And his adversaries, bemused, wait for the next move.

Those like China with leverage like critical minerals are calmer. They know peace in Ukraine or not, Trump cannot hit them with abnormal tariffs, forget 500 percent. Australia, Japan, South Korea and India watch their own spaces. India has to think, for example, how to react if Trump plans a stopover in Pakistan and exhumes that long-buried two-country rule? Can India say to Trump come here another time?

The world is getting used to the new reality. Trump’s critics in the US say his policies are making China great again and there is weight in that argument. His policies are having unintended consequences. Closer home, let’s watch the thawing of the India-China tensions and talk of reviving the tripartite Russia-India-China (RIC) dialogue. Each country has looked for its leverage with Trumpian America. Even the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo has shown how to play with Trump. India will need to build on its own.

Two things the world understands about Trump. One, expect unpredictability, loose talk and chaotic policymaking. Two, that he isn’t there forever. Latest by the end of 2026 he will be a lame duck. Even if not, you can play for time until 2028. A third thing we all need to learn. That his method is more destabilising than his policy. A good idea these couple of years, therefore, is to sip Kool-Aid, and savour the joys of Trumplomacy.