New Delhi shrugs off Trump’s absence as ties sour over trade, Russia, and his self-promotion on India–Pakistan peace
United States President Donald Trump has reportedly dropped plans to attend the upcoming Quad summit in India, and few in New Delhi are shedding tears over his absence. According to The New York Times, the decision comes amid a spectacular nosedive in U.S.–India relations, punctuated this week by Washington slapping 50 per cent levies on Indian imports as punishment for New Delhi’s oil purchases from Russia. For Trump, though, the real issue seems less about policy and more about bruised ego.
The story reads almost like parody. Trump, never missing an opportunity to congratulate himself, could not resist telling Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a June 17 phone call that he alone had ended the recent flare-up between India and Pakistan. He even bragged that Islamabad might nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize—a prize he has been lusting after with the desperation of a second-rate celebrity begging for reality TV airtime. The unsubtle hint was that Modi, too, should join the chorus of admirers. Modi, unsurprisingly, did not.
According to the report, the Indian premier bristled, making it clear that American meddling had nothing to do with the ceasefire and that the matter was settled bilaterally between India and Pakistan. Trump, true to form, brushed this off and doubled down, continuing to boast publicly about his supposed peacemaking. If Trump imagined his self-promotion would play well in New Delhi, the opposite proved true. Indians have little appetite for seeing their country reduced to a backdrop for Trump’s vanity project, much less being conscripted into his Nobel Prize campaign.
The irony is almost too rich. Trump’s insistence on inserting himself into a seventy-five-year-old conflict exposed just how little he grasps the sensitivities of the region. Worse still, reports suggest his team even considered engineering a photo-op handshake between Modi and Pakistan’s army chief during a White House lunch. For Indian officials, this was not diplomacy—it was diplomatic malpractice. The idea that the Prime Minister of India would be maneuvered into a publicity stunt to satisfy Trump’s hunger for headlines was, frankly, insulting.
Now, with ties fraying, India has pivoted more visibly toward Beijing and Moscow. Modi is in Tianjin for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, consulting with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. Against that backdrop, Trump’s absence from the Quad is almost a relief. The last thing India needs is another lecture from Washington’s self-styled dealmaker, still preoccupied with his imaginary Nobel and incapable of grasping that India’s strategic decisions are not props for his ego.
If anything, the message from New Delhi is clear: Donald Trump is not the guest Indians are waiting for.
Sunday, August 31, 2025
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