Despite Trump's peace overtures, experts offer word of caution

TOI Correspondent Washington: Former diplomats and analysts are cautioning against reading too much into US President Donald Trump's comments dialling down his diatribe against India, saying it is typical of his playbook that includes bait and switch to keep perceived adversaries off-balance. At various times, the MAGA supremo has made similar complimentary remarks about the leaders of China, Russia, and even North Korea, while trying to get a leg up on the countries amid growing mistrust of Trumpian America across the world.

"India has little to no reason to trust the US after the administration made an elective choice to tank the relationship by undoing even the achievements with New Delhi from President Trump's own first term," former state department official Evan Feigenbaum wrote in a post on social media platform X. The wielding of a sanctions-like instrument against India and repeatedly referring to tariffs as sanctions, he said, "has stirred up every conceivable bad historical memory and neuralgia about Washington in India from the past".

Forget about salvaging the damaged relationship with India, the Trump regime has by most accounts antagonised even close allies and treaty partners across the world with its MAGA mania. Aside from wrecking ties with neighbours Canada and Mexico, and with nations as far apart as Denmark, Japan and Brazil, the Trump dispensation on Friday managed to antagonise both North Korea and South Korea with different capers.