The world is looking befuddled with the Trump administration in the United States and its policies. From being looked upon as a messiah of hope for serious attempts at stopping wars in Europe and the Middle East (Russia-Ukraine & Israel-Hamas), to declaring its transactional attitude towards trade, to making noises on annexing Greenland, to taking over the Panama Canal, to vice-president J.D. Vance venting at Europe’s leaders, telling them that the biggest threat to their security was “from within” rather than Russa or China, to high-level sackings of agency heads in the US, to new directions on legislative enforcement to the dismantling of various federal departments, there is no shortage of changes to track. Seen from India’s geo-strategic perspective, a positive has been the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting shortly after Donald Trump took office at the White House, thereby indicating a continuity of the Quad initiative, if not increase in its scope, besides Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s successful visit to the US. The anti-China rhetoric raised during the Trump campaigns may, however, not translate into actions at levels that were expected.
