Between two worlds?

On January 26, India, the most populous democratic Republic of the world, celebrates the 75th anniversary of the enactment of the Indian Constitution and people’s participation in the making of a culturally diversified nation. HE Prabowo Subianto, President of the Republic of Indonesia, has agreed to participate as the Chief Guest of the Republic Day parade.

Six days before this event, on January 20, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th President of the richest democracy of the world, the United States of America. He will remain as the President of the USA when the country celebrates the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026.

The richest democracy, with USD 29.16 trillion GDP in 2024, also carries a debt of over USD 36 trillion which makes it economically vulnerable and politically unsecured. Every day the USA spends around USD1.8 billion towards interest payment on debt. The inaugural speech reveals the frustration of the 47th US President who wants to take the nation back to the golden era of 19th century. The opening lines of Trump’s inaugural speech are a lament for those bygone years. He said, “From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world…Our sovereignty will be reclaimed. Our safety will be restored”, “America will soon be greater, stronger, and far more exceptional than ever before.”

Stern warning to BRICS nations

On his first day in office, President Donald Trump issued a stern warning to BRICS nations, of which India is a member, reiterating that any country pursuing de-dollarisation would face a 100 per cent tariff on trade with the United States. Trump’s remarks were in response to the on going efforts by some BRICS members — including Russia and China — to reduce the dominance of the US dollar in global trade. In June 2024, BRICS Foreign Ministers met in Russia to discuss these efforts further, urging greater use of national currencies in financial transactions. However, the former Reserve Bank Governor of India, Shaktikanta Das, clarified that India was not pursuing de-dollarisation but rather focusing on minimising risks from geopolitical changes.

During his first term in office as US President, from January 2017 to January 20 2021, Trump slapped tariffs on USD 380bn of US imports from China. His proposals this time to impose tariffs of at least 60 per cent on Chinese imports and tariffs of 10 to 20 per cent on all other foreign goods would cover goods worth 10 times that amount. The London School of Economics and Political Science has predicted a 0.68 per cent reduction in China’s gross domestic product (GDP) and a 0.11 per cent reduction in the European Union’s GDP. India, Indonesia and Brazil, meanwhile, would see GDP losses of 0.03 per cent, 0.06 per cent and 0.07 per cent, respectively.

After taking oath, it appears that Trump has moderated his aggressive views on China. For China, Trump linked his tariff threat to the country’s alleged role in fentanyl trafficking. “Probably February 1 is the date we’re looking at,” he said when asked about the timeline for implementing the 10 per cent tariff on China.

Trump is upset with its trusted allies, European Union and NATO

In his first major speech to world leaders remotely at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Trump has vowed to bring an end to the Russia-Ukraine war. He called on Saudi Arabia and the other Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) nations to reduce oil prices, asserting that lower prices would help bring the war between Russia and Ukraine to an immediate end. Trump reiterated to a group of business leaders and European officials in Davos that he wants NATO member countries to increase defence spending to 5 per cent of their gross domestic product. “It was only at 2 per cent, and most nations didn’t pay until I came along,” he said. “I insisted that they pay, and they did, because the United States was really paying the difference at that time. And it was unfair to the United States.”

Trump, who has threatened Canada, Mexico with heavy tariffs, said on Tuesday that Europe had troubling trade surpluses with the United States and was “in for tariffs”. The EU “is very, very bad to us”, he alleged. Reacting to it, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for a strong and united Europe after a meeting in Paris on Wednesday to try to consolidate policies as the US President threatened Europe with new tariffs, Scholz said. “Our position is clear. Europe is a large economic area with around 450 million citizens. We are strong. We stand together. Europe will not duck and hide.”

It appears that the EU is in no mood to beg for favourable treatment in the face of US President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda. Instead, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday mapped out an upbeat vision of the EU as an economic heavyweight that was beating the US in many key respects and was open for business with countries such as Mexico and China. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in her first major policy address since Trump’s January 20 inauguration for a second term, von der Leyen drew clear and stark contrasts with America, especially by underlining the EU’s commitment to the Paris climate pact that Washington is ditching.

End of birthright citizenship and war on immigrants

Trump cried of ‘invasion’ to justify an immigration crackdown. “For American citizens, January 20 2025 is Liberation Day,” he said in his inaugural address. The notion that America is being invaded is the defining theme of ten executive orders on immigration and border enforcement he signed on his first day in office, reports the Economist. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) are worried by the expected humanitarian impacts of measures intended to shut out asylum seekers and refugees.

Donald Trump’s executive order to end ‘birth right citizenship’ will impact thousands of Indian diaspora. US Census data reveal Indian Americans number over 5.4 million as of 2024, comprising 1.47 per cent of the US population. Of these, around two-thirds are first-generation immigrants, while the rest are US-born citizens.

If such a change is to occur, it will potentially impact the Indian-American community, which is one of the fastest-growing immigrant populations in the USA. It will potentially impact children born in the US to H-1B visa holders, those waiting for green card, temporary visa holders such as those on student or visitor visas, and undocumented immigrants. There are approximately 14 million undocumented immigrants, including 7,25,000 Indians, in the US. The US had already sent back 1,500 Indians in the financial year 2024 under a lenient Biden administration. According to a 2024 Pew Research report, Indians are the third-largest group of undocumented immigrants in the US, following Mexicans and Salvadorans.

India’s External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar, who represented India at the US President Donald Trump’s inaugural function, has clarified India’s stance to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, saying that “New Delhi is open to the legitimate return” of Indian nationals living ‘illegally’ abroad, including in the US. Meanwhile, as per BBC report, an internal US government memo suggests that as many as 10,000 soldiers could be sent to the US-Mexico border as part of Trump’s efforts to tackle illegal immigration. Anticipating mass deportations of migrants, Mexico has already started building large temporary shelters along its border with the USA.

Trump’s executive orders are novel legal arguments that fully task the US military with repelling asylum-seekers; threaten aggressive use of criminal penalties to ensure compliance; and open the door to future invocations of the centuries-old Insurrection Act and Alien Enemies Act, commented American Immigration Council. It may be mentioned that the Insurrection Act of 1807 empowers the president of the United States to deploy the US military and federalised National Guard troops within the United States in particular circumstances, such as to suppress civil disorder, insurrection, or rebellion, and Alien Enemies Act of 1798 allows the president to detain or deport the natives and citizens of an enemy nation.

The Republican-led House on Wednesday (January 22, 2025) gave its final approval to a bill that requires the detainment of unauthorised immigrants accused of theft and violent crimes. Passage of the Laken Riley Act, named after a Georgia nursing student who was murdered last year by a Venezuelan man, shows just how sharply the political debate over immigration has shifted to the right following Trump’s election victory, writes The Hindu. Nevertheless, a federal judge in Seattle blocked Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday from implementing an executive order curtailing the right to automatic birthright citizenship in the US, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional”, reports The Guardian.

Trump regime: beginning of the second cold war

Trump’s inaugural speech as the President of the United States and his subsequent Executive Orders has created a sense of fear, across the globe, on the economic and political consequences for the rest of the world. The global economy will face a serious blow if Trump repeats protectionist policies of his first presidential term. Citing various studies, Aljazeera reports that during his campaign, Trump declared “tariff” his favourite word and the “most beautiful word in the dictionary”, and cited the protectionist policies of former President William McKinley, who governed from 1897 to 1901, as an inspiration.

President Trump’s mention of ‘Manifest Destiny’ in connection with his endeavour to put US flag on Mars, generated serious concerns among pacifists as, under Manifest Destiny, it was believed that the United States had the divine right to expand westward — and that all such exploration and expansion was God-ordained. Trump, in his Presidential address, confirmed that he would change the name of Denali — the traditional Native Alaskan name of the highest mountain peak in North America, to Mount McKinley. He also confirmed to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and reiterated that his administration will seek to reassert control over the Panama Canal. “We’re taking it back,” he said. Reacting to this, Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino said, during a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, “We reject in its entirety everything that Trump has said. ..The Panama Canal belongs to Panama and will continue to belong to Panama.”

Reference of ‘Menifest Destiny’ in his inaugural speech got more attention as Trump keeps floating the idea that Canada should join the United States as the 51st state, saying he would not use military force to invade the country, which is home to more than 40 million people and is a founding NATO partner. In his speech to WEF, President Donald Trump said the United States will begin “demanding respect from other nations” and immediately took a shot at Canada as one of the countries that has been “very tough to deal with.” Trump said Canada could “become a state” in the United States as a way of eliminating America’s trade deficit with Canada, adding the United States does not need their cars, lumber, or oil and gas, reports the Washington Post.

On January 20, 2017, the day when Donald Trump became president of the United States, in his previous term, marked the beginning of a new “critical phase” in the distribution of political and economic power on a planetary scale, wrote Fernando Flores Morador (2019). Like the Cold War-1 (CW1), this second Cold War (CW2) was born from the rise of an emerging primary power. In the past, it was the USSR, and now, it is China. Despite similarities between CW1 and CW2, some important differences can be observed in the axis of political confrontation. CW1 was fundamentally political-military, while CW2 is fundamentally technological-commercial, he argued.

Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign very deliberately echoed the one that Ronald Reagan ran in 1980. “Peace through strength” and “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” are the two Reagan slogans that are best remembered today. In 1980, Reagan used the slogan “Make America great again,” including in his convention acceptance speech. The shadow of Ronal Reagan is clearly visible in Trump. Niall Ferguson, the author of ‘Kissinger: 1923–1968; The Idealist’, advised Trump to learn from President Reagan to effectively compete with China.

While Donald Trump has signed an executive order to begin the process of withdrawing the US from the World Health Organisation (WHO), and promised, for a second time, to repeal the United States’ participation in the Paris Agreement that most countries, saying, ‘We will drill, baby, drill’, it is reported that the Chinese scientists set a world record by maintaining plasma temperatures exceeding 100 million degrees Celsius for nearly 18 minutes, advancing the pursuit of limitless clean energy.

Observations

India is on the crossroads now. In the looming cold war between USA and China, India will have to consciously decide to which side it will align with or will it revive its policy of non-alignment as proposed by the first Prime Minister?

Apparently, India is very close to the USA administration as the US needs India to counter China. In 2016, the United States designated India as a Major Defence Partner. Commensurate with this designation, in 2018, India was elevated to Strategic Trade Authorisation tier 1 status, which allows India to receive license-free access to a wide range of military and dual-use technologies regulated by the Department of Commerce. Former US National Security Advisor (NSA) John Bolton has praised India’s growing importance to the United States. Writing for the Washington Examiner, Bolton pointed to the joint US-India effort to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a testament to India’s willingness to assert its influence on the global stage.

It may be mentioned that except India, all the trusted allies of the USA situated in the Indo-Pacific region, namely, Japan, South Korea, Australia and the Philippines, have joined China initiated trading bloc-RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership). The website of USA’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, writes on January 20, 2025: India plays a vital role in achieving our shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific. Working alongside interagency partners, the Political-Military Affairs (PM)

Bureau advances the defence trade relationship and broader security partnership between the United States and India. Upbeat about the future of the India-US ties, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Wednesday (January 22, 2025) said, clearly there is an interest in the new Trump Administration in taking this relationship forward.

On the other side, India’s largest neighbour China has emerged as the major contender of the USA hegemony and all other neighbours of India have developed a very strong economic and strategic relation with China—world’s second largest economy. China is also India’s largest trading partner in which China enjoys huge trade surplus. Moreover, India is highly dependent on China for many of its critical industrial inputs.

One section of analysts believe that this is a high time to invite China to invest in India’s manufacturing sector and take advantage of India’s young working population. In addition to this, if the USA slams visa restrictions and compels NRIs to return due to denial of automatic citizenship by birth, a huge number of skilled work forces will be added to India. It will be a win-win situation for both India and China.

It is reported that Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri will travel to Beijing on Sunday (January 26, 2025) which is an indication that India and China are reviving dialogue mechanisms after the four-year break over the military stand-off at the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Incidentally this date coincides with the 75th Republic Day of India when the Indonesian President will participate in the parade as chief guest. It may be recalled that in April, 1955, representatives from twenty-nine governments of Asian and African nations gathered in Bandung, Indonesia to discuss peace and the role of the Third World in the Cold War, economic development, and decolonisation. The conference is considered a milestone in the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement where the then President of Indonesia and Indian Prime Minister played a major role.

Views expressed are personal