USA: The Don Disapoints None | Jayant Gadkari

January 29, 2025

From 20th January onwards when the 47th U S President Donald Trump has taken his oath of office, he has neither disappointed his admirers nor his critics. The American Don has proved himself to be true to his declared intentions of dominating the world scene by being an international bully.

During the last more than a week, he has reiterated all his plans and how he is going to implement them. Trump’s priority of course has been on the "illegal" immigration of alleins in the U S including a large number of Indians among them. Other priorities include mainly its expansion policies like asking as big as a country like Canada to give up its independent status and become the number 51 State of the USA; its intention to grab Greenland, the biggest island in the world; its arrogance in asking PANAMA, a small State of Central America to hand over the control of PANAMA CANAL to U S which joins with a sea-link between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans; and spelling out terms and conditions of "guiding" (controlling) of socio-economic and political systems of U K and European Union to work as subsidiaries of the U S.

Trump has left no doubt in anybody’s mind about the grand imperialistic and expansionist designs of the present U S administration under his control. Only on one point, there appears to be some confusion, that is the two wars, the Israel-Hamas and the Russia-Ukraine conflicts, both have been raging in the world for more than a year now. While Trump has warned Vladimir Putin of Russia of "serious consequences" if he does not end its war against Ukraine, it is not so firm in its stand on the conclusion of the Israeli-Hamas conflict. Though the entire Western world including U S has been supporting Ukraine morally and materially, Trump has recently announced a cut in the supply of arms to Ukraine. On the other hand, he lifted the ban in supplying of consignment of powerful 2,000-pound bombs to Israel which was "paused" by the previous Biden administration despite a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas holding there.

Along with lifting of this dangerous ban, the U S has put forward a very shrewd and cunning proposal of "advising" Palestinians not to go back to the Gaza Strip which is "totally devastated" and has become "inhabitable". Obviously this "advice" appears to deprive the Palestinians of having control on the territory in the long run. All these steps and advice only indicate to a long-term U S policy on the part of the Trump Govt to permanently deprive the Palestinians of their own home country in the region in future.

In order to achieve success in following this policy, the Trump administration is pressuring the governments of Jordan and Egypt to take more Palestinians as refugees to keep the "clean out" of GAZA for the future. Trump made clear his ultimate objective in his complimentary message to the Jordan king for having successfully accepted Palestinian refugees by saying: "I would love you to take on more because I am looking at the whole GAZA strip right now, and it’s a mess, It’s a complete mess". It is another matter that the Govt of Jordan has flatly rejected Trump’s suggestion. But who is responsible for this "mess" and what other way it can be described after the Israeli marauders have killed more than 50,000 innocent Palestinian citizens in that area since the beginning of the conflict 15 months ago?

As one of the first steps to impose his will, Trump sent hundreds of "immigrants" from COLOMBIA huddled in two military planes and one to BRAZIL in order to implement his brazen, inhuman policy of sending back the illegal immigrants. Both these countries which are led by Left-wing Presidents did not take this U S act kindly and sent back the aircrafts in protest against this "indecent" and "uncivil" act - in the case of BRAZIL the immigrants were reportedly sent handcuffed and the Brazilian Govt launched a strong protest against it.

Meanwhile, despite the humiliating political treatment being given and browbeating the country on the issue of the immigration of Indian citizens to
U S, and increasing of tariffs on imported Indian goods, our Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed his first communication to his "Dear Friend" Donald Trump pledging "strong Indo-U S ties committed to a mutually beneficial and trusted partnership". This was Modi’s first conversation with the "dear friend" since Trump assumed charge as U S President on January 20, 2025.

But while talking to Modi, his "dear friend" said that the Prime Minister of India "will do what is right" regarding the return of Indians who came to the U S illegally. Moreover, Trump bracketed India along with other nations like China and Brazil for imposing tariffs that "harm" US. At the same time, Trump called on India to increase buying more American-made security equipment and "move towards a more fair trade ties."

It is expected that Modi will go to U S either in February or early March to personally meet his "dear friend" to have a "friendly chat" on these topics. The agenda for these talks is already set by Trump. It will be interesting to look forward what would be Modi’s response to it.