Donald Trump, the President of the United States of America, has earned himself the moniker of being the WMD (weapon of mass destruction, for the uninitiated) of the global order, as we once knew it. Frequently ridiculed and correctly lampooned for his mercurial mood swings ( which decides geopolitical conditions) and several sexual harassment cases, including those of his allegedly “Epstein past”, Trump poses as a mind-numbing conundrum to the world, for two reasons.Firstly, his capricious predilections, bordering on pure insanity, has led to extreme unpredictability. From the stock markets to trade negotiations to military alliances, uncertainty is a dreaded word. It makes policy-making redundant; everything becomes reductionist, everything is a short-term transactional deal until the weekend golfer from Mar-a-Lago golf club next gets a migraine or watches a Fox News program that triggers him. The second factor exacerbates the problem caused by the first; the American president is the most powerful man in the world. The world’s largest economy, which also commands the global currency, and its insuperable military prowess, makes the man in the White House the Zubin Mehta of the philharmonic orchestra. Trump had already experienced the heady near-monarchical status of a unipolar US in his first term. This second time, when he has won against all odds, he is hell-bent to leverage the formidable power of the Oval Office, an unfinished task as it were. ‘MAGA’ – or ‘Make America Great Again’ – is nothing but a movement to resuscitate the smoldering remains of the great American Empire facing an inevitable decline that began probably around the Bill Clinton-George Bush Jr presidencies. India, unfortunately, forgot to read the tea leaves. The foreign policy miscalculations by the Modi government have put it in an unenviable quandary, and almost friendless. Given America’s duplicitous track-record abroad (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and several Latin American countries) and the Trump administration’s open admission that it encouraged a multipolar world, India needed to be more circumspect and less effusive when handling Uncle Sam. For heaven’s sake, USA has even considered jettisoning NATO, the most durable and strategically significant military alliance post-world war two! However, New Delhi chose to put all its eggs in the Washington basket. A bulwark against China, a pawn in the American chessboard, delighted the mandarins in South Block. Despite the historic civil nuclear deal that was collaboratively conceptualised and curated between late Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former US President Geroge Bush Jr, which removed our pariah status in the storied nuclear club, India maintained its non-aligned status when it came to the Big Boys club, deftly handling its old but diminished ally Russia and strengthening relationship with its mighty adversary China. There were no tilts. Global summits began to talk about the great Asian resurgence in the Chindia story. The Russian remained a steadfast support. Barack Obama’s respect for Singh is legendary. So what has changed so dramatically that it prompted Trump acolyte Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to say “We are going to tear the hell out of you and ruin your economy”? Why would the Americans call India’s buying of cheap Russian oil, “blood money”, akin to funding Vladimir Putin’s bloody war in Ukraine? From bromance to bete noire, how did the much pumped-up bonhomie – Ab Ki Baar Trump Sarkar and Howdy Modi – between the two heads of state suddenly turn so bitter? The answer lies not so much in the 50% tariff (Trump has threatened more sanctions), which is an irrational arm-twisting by the Trump administration, but in India surrendering its nuanced, liberal pro-human rights embedded in international relations, ostensibly for strategic self-interest. That is the crux of the matter. Ignore the clever wordplay that foreign policy wonks habitually do to obfuscate positions, but how did India come to not back UNGA resolutions on condemning Russian invasion and human rights violations in Ukraine several times over? Just because of cheap Russian oil? Gaza is the apotheosis of perverse hubris and shocking apathy; India actually did not even support UNGA resolutions calling for ceasefire and humanitarian assistance for the slaughtered, suffering and starving Palestinians. India became the social media misinformation/disinformation capital of the world; its pro-Isreal propaganda flooding toxic platforms.The world saw India in a new avatar: ambivalent on human rights, opportunistic on commercial deal-making, egregiously sympathetic to Israeli genocide and blithely nonchalant about conducting offshore assassinations of suspected terrorists. To justify everything, “strategic autonomy” became the convenient pretext in a country that had turned ultra-nationalistic in its public discourse. But the truth is, not even Shashi Tharoor’s extraordinary eloquence can camouflage the blatant fault lines, the demonstrable chicanery in India’s foreign policy. India stands isolated in its own immediate neighborhood. Under Modi, India has abandoned any pretensions of leading the global South, clearly preferring cheap Russian oil and Israel’s Pegasus spyware, surveillance systems and defense hardware instead. Modi has reduced foreign policy, a complex statecraft into a domestic theatrical pantomime. Everything is about a megalomaniacal cult. Thus, cornered by a recalcitrant Trump and bullied by all his lackeys too, a feckless Modi wished to score brownie points. “Won’t compromise on our interests, ready to pay heavy personal price”: as usual, it was back to playing the victimhood card. Americans are the smartest businesspeople. Trump likes blandishments, but even chuffed bullies often double-down on those who do not push back. They saw that Modi was nebbish; all he needed was video content to burnish his popularity on the electronic screens in India. That Trump is perfunctorily hammering India, whose trade surplus is just about 5% of US total trade deficit, tells you how he has been conditioned to seeing a complaisant India play footsie with him. India’s giant crush on both Trump and Israel has also been because of their shining Islamophobia. It has helped the local narrative that the BJP thrives on. Unfortunately for Modi, foreign policy is conducted in an open unfiltered theater. It is almost impossible to manipulate headlines using cheerleader promos consistently. Truth often leaks out. There is also the “Adani factor”, a negotiating instrument in the hands of the art of deal maker Trump. Remember, Trump had asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for dirt on Hunter Biden in return for military aid? You should know what you are asking for. Sanjay Jha is an author and former national spokesperson for the Congress.