{"id":73976,"date":"2025-09-06T14:00:43","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T05:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2025\/sep\/06\/modi-trump-india-new-world-order"},"modified":"2025-09-06T14:00:43","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T05:00:43","slug":"blindsided-by-trump-modi-is-learning-hard-lessons-about-indias-place-in-the-new-world-order-mukul-kesavan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=73976","title":{"rendered":"Blindsided by Trump, Modi is learning hard lessons about India&#8217;s place in the new world order | Mukul Kesavan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New Delhi spent decades cosying up to the US. The truth is, Washington doesn\u2019t have allies outside the west \u2013 it has clients<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Sign up for our new weekly newsletter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global\/2025\/jun\/26\/sign-up-to-matters-of-opinion-a-weekly-discussion-from-our-columnists-and-writers\">Matters of Opinion<\/a>, where our columnists and writers will reflect on what they\u2019ve been debating, thinking about, reading and more<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When Donald Trump won his second term, India\u2019s ruling elite must have been quietly pleased. Prime minister Narendra Modi\u2019s performative courting of King Donald, both in and out of office, suggested a special chemistry between these two titans of the hard right.<\/p>\n<p>As Trump set about remaking global trade and geopolitics by weaponising tariffs, India got into trade negotiations with the US early. New Delhi accepted that negotiations would be difficult, given its red lines on agricultural and dairy products. Yet it was optimistic about getting a deal commensurate with India\u2019s economic heft \u2013 and strategic value to the US as a counterweight to China.<\/p>\n<p>Mukul Kesavan is an Indian historian, novelist and political and social essayist<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2025\/sep\/06\/modi-trump-india-new-world-order\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Delhi spent decades cosying up to the US. The truth is, Washington doesn\u2019t have allies outside the west \u2013 it has clientsSign up for our new weekly newsletter Matters of Opinion, where our columnists and writers will reflect on what they\u2019ve been deb&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1047,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,415,62,433,61,3280,3279,45,47,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-donald-trump","category-india","category-narendra-modi","category-south-and-central-asia","category-tariffs","category-trump-tariffs","category-us-foreign-policy","category-us-news","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1047"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73976"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73987,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73976\/revisions\/73987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}