Trump and Modi’s broken bromance

0:00Just under six years ago, then-President Donald Trump hosted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a big old rally in Houston. Prime Minister Modi and I have come to Houston to celebrate everything that unites America and India. Maybe the most memorable thing about the event, at least for me personally, was the two world leaders holding hands as they walked the rally floor. Look at those hands. Are they small hands? Fast forward six years, Trump's back in charge here, and Modi's still in charge there, but the bromance is on the rocks. I always say tariffs is the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary.

0:37And Modi is hanging out with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin this week. And no, say it ain't so. He's holding hands with Vladimir! Holding hands at one point, Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi were. Is the President of the United States gonna be okay? On Today Explained from Vox. Weihnachtsschmaus und Silvestererklets sind gerade vorbei. There's a new tradition in the next corner. That big Opel-grill is definitely at your partner. With music, from the grill and exclusive services. Like the Opel Frontier already at 225€ monthly in Leasing plus Sonderzahlung. And in the showroom is also the rest of the model-plug.

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1:33Vyakya He. You're listening to Today Explained.

1:41Sadanan Dahomey is a fellow, specifically a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. We started with why it matters that the United States and India get along in the first place. I mean, well, it matters for a few reasons. The first is that maintaining a good relationship with India has been a central part of American strategy in the Indo-Pacific for at least 25 years. And the reasons for that are obvious. India is the most populous nation in the world. It is currently the world's fifth largest economy. It's predicted to be the third largest economy at market exchange rates by 2028. It has the world's second largest military, and it has a large and disputed boundary with China.

2:24So for all those reasons, it's also democratic. Biggest democracy in the world. Correct. And so for all those reasons, the U.S. has worked hard, particularly over the last 25 years, to have India lean towards the U.S. rather than lean towards China. And I think the U.S. strategy has been quite successful. But now, of course, it's all up in the air. And before we talk about how it all ended up in the air, let's talk about how good it used to be, even between the two leaders who are now breaking up. So Trump and Modi had quite a bromance in the first Trump administration. You know, to start with, I think both of them, you know, many people saw them as having striking commonalities.

3:14Both are populist. Both were disliked by and dislike their traditional elites and their traditional mainstream media. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has never really given a press conference to Indian media. And there was CNN, there was the New York Times, and they're both disgusting, disgusting, really horrible groups of people. Both had a habit of appealing directly to the masses in an unmediated way.

3:56And we are going to make America great again.

4:05And so in some ways, they were, you know, they were similar characters. And Modi really went out of his way to move Trump. He and Trump held this rally together in Texas called the Howdy Modi rally. India has a true friend in White House. Is that where they held hands? They held hands at that one, right? They've held hands in more than one place. But yeah, that's the one where Modi grabbed Trump by the hand and took him on a tour of the stadium. and then Modi invited Trump to Ahmedabad, which is in Gujarat, which is Modi's home state. And there in this giant cricket stadium, they had another rally called Namaste Trump to welcome Trump to India.

4:57The life of Prime Minister Modi underscores the limitless promise of this great nation. He started out by his father's side as a chiwala,

5:14I believe there were something like 100 ,000 people at that rally. And then before the 2020 election, Modi all but endorsed Trump, which is very unusual for a foreign leader, certainly for an Indian leader to do. And obviously Trump lost. But the Biden folks were very gracious about it and they kind of ignored it and pretended it didn't happen. Nice. And then when Trump was re-elected, Modi was one of the first foreign leaders to visit. He visited the White House in February, and he said that... MAGA plus MEGA, which is make India great again, equals MEGA. And so, you know, the bromance seemed to be going really well.

6:06And now suddenly it's not. Tell us how that happened. What caused the breakup, if it is indeed that? A couple of things happened. I think the first is that in February, when Modi visited, there was an announcement that the U.S. and India were working towards a trade deal and that they wanted to more than double trade to$500 billion. And so the Indians thought that they had a bit of an inside track in terms of getting a trade deal. We're very close to a deal with India where they open it up. Reports back here in India suggest the Modi government is keen on securing a trade deal, but will keep national interest as priority.

6:46That obviously has not happened. Is the deal with India finalized? No, it's not. The second thing, and I think this is the more important thing that went wrong, was that there was a brief military conflict between India and Pakistan in May. These are two nuclear powers, and there are many people concerned that they will go to war. Perhaps you do end up in a world where the idea of throwing punches between nuclear-armed neighbours and nuclear-armed adversaries is no longer as unthinkable. And at the end of the four days, before Modi could say anything or announce anything to his own people or to his own country, Trump suddenly put out a truth on Truth Social, announcing a ceasefire and taking credit for it.

7:34Truth Social. After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a full and immediate ceasefire. So there was an embarrassment for Modi. India insists that it was their decision decided between them and Pakistan. The Pakistanis, who can't believe their good fortune, have stepped up by nominating Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize. Thank you very much. This I didn't know. And so as a result of all of this, Trump appears to be quite miffed with India and quite pleased with Pakistan. The Indians are miffed with Trump. And now it's all become much more complicated because Trump has not only applied 25 % regular, what they call reciprocal sanctions in the lingo of this administration, but he's also slapped on an additional 25%, which he in fact refers to as sanctions, in retaliation supposedly for the fact that India buys lots of oil from Russia, then it really is going to hurt the Indian economy.

8:39So, you know, so that's really how the bromance has melted down. I have to ask, hearing your timeline, is India in a trade war with the United States right now because essentially they impeded Trump's efforts to get a Nobel Peace Prize? That is at least partly, and in my view, a large part of the explanation, yes. Wow. Wow, if true.

9:07I made this point in a Wall Street Journal column where I said that, look, there's still room for a grand bargain. But on a more serious note, if they are not able to come to an agreement and if this continues, I do think public opinion in India is in danger of turning against the U.S. in a way that it really hasn't for a long time. And is that bad for India too? Oh, for sure. I mean, put yourself in India's shoes, right? They have this enormous neighbor, China. They have a disputed border. The Chinese lay claims to chunks of territory that the Indians regard as India and vice versa. And so this means that India faces China, which is technologically more advanced, which has an economy about five times larger than India's.

10:01There was a border clash in 2020 in which 20 Indian soldiers lost their lives. but essentially India is moving to mend relations with China but it recognizes that fundamentally it has a very deep problem with China that stretches back decades.

10:22But they did just have a splashy little summit. All together in Beijing, President Xi Jinping rolled out the red carpet for a security summit with Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Modi laughing and holding hands. It is also saying that the era of one or two countries calling all the shots should end and must end. Instead of great powers issuing ultimatums, China wants dialogue over division, cooperation over zero-sum games. Is India and Modi now trying to signal that things could be on the mend with China in light of what's going on with the United States? So, Sean, my view is that Modi, this was Modi's first visit to China in seven years, by the way, because, you know, after that border clash in 2020, visits basically were put on ice.

11:14So it's a big deal that Modi went to China for the first time in seven years. But my view is that he would probably have attended the summit either way. The SCO or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, this is an organization in which both China, Russia are members, so is India. And India normally does attend these summits. But what is different and what I think is fair to attribute to Trump's actions is just the very purposeful way in which Modi went around tweeting his photos with Putin and Xi. And just, I mean, India played it up far more. So I would say to sum up that India was in any case trying to mend its relationship with China.

12:04But what Trump has done is really made that a much more urgent priority for the Indians than it was before he started this tariff war.

12:18Sadanan Dahoume, he's a columnist of the Wall Street Journal. We're heading to the Anti-America Summit when we're back on Today Explained.

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16:51You are listening to today's podcast. You are listening to Today Explained.

17:25Was this like an anti-American summit? Was that the theme? I mean, it might seem that way. And, you know, the speech that Xi Jinping gave earlier this week definitely had a lot of not so veiled references to overturning the American-led order.

17:46We should advocate for an equal and orderly, multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization and make the global governance system more just and equitable. A lot of talk about hegemony and bullying on the world stage, and it's pretty clear who he's talking about when he said that. China needs us much more than we need them. There are two parts here. I mean, there's a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is this kind of loose Chinese-led economic and security grouping. We steadily promoted law enforcement and security cooperation, properly managed and settled differences, unequivocally opposed external interference, and maintained peace and stability in the region.

18:38And then there's a big parade to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II that also doubles as a kind of trade show for China to show off its most advanced military hardware and weaponry. This was the largest military parade that China has ever held. We're seeing hypersonic missiles, nuclear missiles, stealth fighters, drones. The list goes on. So in both senses, this is kind of a message aimed at Washington.

19:09Looking at the coverage of this event, it felt like a photo op. I guess a lot of these kinds of summits often feel like photo ops. But you're saying that there was like a deeper purpose and even a pitch being made to the developing world. I think so. I think that if you look at the remarks Xi made, you know, he was against protectionism. So I think there's a message to countries that China, this rising power, is giving a message of stability. is giving a message like, we're not going to interfere with you. You can count on us. It's not every four years, this country's policy is going to radically change.

19:47It's not, we're going to slap these punitive tariffs on you unless you do what we say. So I think that's definitely the pitch they're making, that they're a sort of more reliable, responsible actor on the world stage than that other superpower that will not be named. The one that India is kind of in a fight with, the one that Russia's kind of in a fight with, the one that China's kind of in a fight with. Yeah, well, I mean, it makes sense that India is the country people are focusing on the most. I mean, India and China have had a pretty fraught relationship themselves over the last few years.

20:23India has really been very concerned about becoming too economically dependent on China, about China's information influence. People don't remember India banned TikTok years before that was even like a topic of discussion in the U.S. And, you know, the U.S. has spent years, you know, to a large extent, under the first Trump administration when relations were better. I look forward to working with you, Mr. Prime Minister, to create jobs in our countries, to grow our economies and to create a trading relationship that is fair and reciprocal. And then continuing under Biden, promoting ties with India and deepening ties with India, as a means to sort of have a counterweight to China, to have another major economic power in Asia that's in America's orbit that can kind of balance Beijing's growing clout.

21:14If the United States and India became closer friends and partners, then the world will be a safer place. And the Biden administration did that in the face of a lot of criticism from the Democratic Party. People were, you know, upset with the human rights record of Modi's India. And all that work that's been done over those two administrations has kind of been thrown aside because the Trump administration has other priorities. So, you know, it's not really a surprise to see India kind of hedging, kind of looking to improve its relationship with China. So at least it's not in a feud with two different superpowers at the same time, one of which is right on its borders.

21:51And what does Russia want in all of this? There's this sort of idea that was very prevalent in sort of Washington policy circles in the last couple of years that there was this like axis of authoritarians. You know, somebody called it crinks, China, Russia, India, North Korea. It's a axis of authoritarians, an axis of autocrats, an axis of anti-Americanism. And the goal is really simple. It's to destroy global American leadership and sever our alliances and partnerships. These four countries were sort of forming a coherent unit, an axis. India, you're the biggest democracy in the world. Act like one.

22:30Side with the democracies. You're getting in bed with the authoritarians. And I think that China's obviously the kind of senior partner, the one with the most clout among these four countries. But it's been the kind of war in Ukraine that I think has really kind of driven it forward. I mean, since that war began and Russia's faced heavy Western sanctions, lost customers for its exports in the West. It's been selling an awful lot of oil to China and to India, primarily. It's been dependent on China very heavily for imports of consumer goods, of electronics. On the battlefield, it's dependent now on munitions and even soldiers from North Korea, on drones from Iran.

23:18So I think that you have seen these four countries be kind of driven closer together. These are four countries that have very different ideologies, of course, but there is an alliance of convenience that's sort of driven by the fact that all four are like under heavy US sanctions. And if you think about how the United States might counter such a sphere of influence, you kind of think about something like NATO, right? Or the group of seven or the group of 10. But Donald Trump doesn't seem to be into those alliances terribly. How is he planning on countering what's happening in the East this week?

23:59Yeah, I mean, it's funny, like some of the coverage of Xi Jinping's remarks talks about, you know, how he's pushing back against the Western-led political order and groups like NATO and the EU. But like, you know who else doesn't like those institutions? Donald Trump. So from whatever else you can say about Donald Trump, I don't think like a Cold War mentality really describes the way he sees the world. To put it crudely, the foreign policy blob in Washington, the kind of bipartisan, somewhat hawkish national security consensus has seen it, is that we have no choice but to sort of take on these countries all at once, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran.