Trump’s Imperial Turn Leaves India With No Easy Choices
Trump’s revival of imperial doctrine upends global norms, pressures India strategically, and demands stronger sovereignty, economic resilience, and principled opposition.
The Gist
Trump's foreign policy reflects a shift towards imperialism, prioritising US interests over global alliances.
- The revival of the Monroe Doctrine signals a desire to exploit Latin American resources.
- Trump's threats to Greenland highlight a willingness to use force for strategic gains.
- India's position as a US ally is questioned amid rising tariffs and self-interest in US foreign policy.
More than a whiff of the 19th century wafts into the 21st, thanks to President Donald Trump’s White House, as he pays homage to President McKinley (1897-1901) and resurrects the Monroe Doctrine, announced by President James Monroe in 1823.
McKinley led the US to victory in the Spanish-American War, and acquired new territories: Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. For good measure, he also annexed Hawaii and secured a naval base in Cuba, at Guantanamo, and effective overlordship of the entire tropical island, which ended only with Fidel Castro’s 26 July movement overthrowing the puppet regime of Batista, in concert with two other rebel groups, in 1959. The 26 July movement evolved into the Communist Party of Cuba by 1965.
The Monroe Doctrine was announced in a context in which Europe comprised colonial powers, and the US was a colony that had obtained freedom, and did not want that thwarted by the old imperial powers reassembling their forces in the Americas. It essentially warned Europe to keep off the Americas, and leave the region for the US to police. In return, the US offered Europe non-interference in their colonies. Democracy was not an export the US favoured those days.
An Avatar Of Imperialism
The context in which Trump resurrects the Monroe Doctrine is very different today. European powers are feeble, in comparison to the US, and mostly democratic to a degree that would make building fresh colonies politically impossible. The only sense the Monroe Doctrine makes today is to arrogate to the US the right to plunder the riches of Latin America and dictate the region’s policies. This is the latest avatar of Imperialism.
On January 3, the US carried out a massive military operation to destroy/neutralise Venezuelan defence positions in the Capital Caracas, and abducted President Nicolas Maduro and wife Celia Flores, to bring them to the US, and face charges of operating a drugs cartel, terrorism and possessing machine guns. US forces have maintained almost a maritime blockade of Venezuela since September, shooting and destroying fishing boats and their crew, accusing them of smuggling drugs to the US, and interdicted and taken over tankers carrying Venezuelan oil to third countries, such as China.
Trump has said the US would run Venezuela, take the country’s oil and use the proceeds of oil sales for the benefit of the Venezuelan people and of the American people. He dismissed the notion that the Venezuelan Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, winner of the Nobel Prize for peace, could be trusted to run the country. The US would run Venezuela for a long time, Trump told The New York Times.
He made The New York Times team sit through a call from Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in which the Lefitist leader seemed to abandon his hostile public posture and explain to Trump what his government is doing to control the export of drugs from that country.
In other words, Trump is making good on his National Security Strategy document’s promise to dominate the Western Hemisphere and control its destiny.
Next Stop, Greenland
Following the action against Venezuela, Trump has renewed his threats to take over Greenland to protect vital national security interests relating to shipping lanes in the Arctic, increasingly attractive for China, besides Russia, and to the island nation’s mineral wealth. European powers are backing Denmark, which claims Greenland as a protectorate.
Despite his refusal to rule out the use of force to take over Greenland, Trump might actually prefer to foment anti-colonial unrest in Greenland against Denmark’s control and help liberate the region. Or he could follow the time-honoured tradition of the US buying out European colonial possessions in North America — the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, from France, the Florida purchase from Spain, in 1819, and the Alaska Purchase, in 1867, from Russia — and make a real estate deal of it with Denmark.
Use of force would destroy the NATO alliance and shred the idea of a durable Trans-Atlantic partnership. As the US seems bent on annexing Greenland, it would be politic for Denmark to accept a commercial deal that cannot be refused. The only downside to the US taking up liberation cudgels on behalf of Greenland’s Inuit people is that it might give idea to native-American tribes in the US.
India Not A Worthy Ally?
Trump has bared naked self-interest as the underlying motive of US foreign policy. India is not an ally worth cultivating, for Trump. He has shown the greenlight to a bill in Congress that seeks to raise tariffs up to 500% on imports from countries that buy Russian oil.
The threat of a 500% duty on Indian exports is no scarier than the policy of 50% duty on Indian exports. If dropping a 50 kg stone on a man’s head is enough to kill him, what additional lethality does a 500 kg boulder carry? But more damaging is Trump’s boast that Modi understands that he has to make Trump happy, to avoid penal duties.
Sovereignty Demands National Strength
India cannot afford to legitimise a global norm that holds respect for national sovereignty to be an indulgence. Nor does it make sense for India to let Beijing take the lead in championing national sovereignty in the face of resurgent imperialism. India must take the lead in opposing Trump’s assault on the rules-based world order, and not cede that space to China.
The pursuit of strategic autonomy, however, calls for a whole lot more than taking a firm stand on global affairs. It calls for building economic strength that can sustain much larger spending on defence. It calls for sustained investment in education to create critical thinking in the young. It calls for increasing the outlay on research and development manifold, from the present abysmal level of 0.64% of GDP.
It calls for national coherence and a vision of a shared destiny among 1.5 billion Indians. Sectarian politics that divide the people and pit one section against another undercuts the needed coherence. So does the embrace of stark social and income inequality as a feature of economic efficiency.
The recent controversy over gig workers who carry out deliveries for e-commerce companies, including food delivery platforms, serves as a case in point. Such workers went on strike on New Year’s Eve, demanding better wages, social security and working conditions.
Efficiency Without Exploitation
Many chose to see in the development an effort to undermine the new businesses that have done well building around efficient delivery by gig workers, who are not permanent employees and earn from the deliveries they make, in accordance with performance parameters set by the platforms.
Some platforms offer their delivery riders insurance to cover accidents and injury, but many do not. Nobody pays retirement benefits. The new labour codes do, in fact, provide for social security for gig workers. Here, the key is uniform enforcement of the norms.
If no platform can undercut the rest by flouting a norm seeking to set aside a portion of delivery fees to provide riders with accident, health and life insurance, and retirement savings, deposited in National Pension System accounts, worker interests can be taken care of with a marginal increment to the cost consumers bear for their super-convenient deliveries. Avoided rider benefits accrue to the consumers, not the platforms. Consumers would pay a marginal addition to their delivery costs, provided such levies are uniformly implemented.
Growth numbers float high, but sentiment struggles to leave terra firma. The coming Budget could, perhaps, improve things, for example, by delivering on the promises of past Budgets, say, to forge a policy on power storage and a bunch of policies for public-private partnership in different segments of infrastructure.
