India in Donald Trump's sights

The days of the alliance between Donald Trump and Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, so well staged during the American president's first term , are over. The White House tenant carried out his threats by signing, on Wednesday, August 6, an executive order imposing 25% additional customs duties on New Delhi as a sanction for its purchases of Russian oil.

This new penalty, scheduled to take effect on August 27, comes on top of the 25% tax on Indian products exported to the United States, which is due to take effect on Thursday, August 7. The country is now being treated with the same violence as Brazil, under left-wing President Lula Da Silva, a vocal opponent of Donald Trump.

This escalation is jeopardizing the alliance between Washington and New Delhi, which is supposed to act as a counterweight to China, and is sparking a sense of betrayal in India, where the understanding between the two populist leaders seemed promising. The Republican's words, in a message published on his Truth Social network, give an idea of the deterioration of their relations: "I don't care what India does with Russia. They can sink their devastated economies together, I don't care," he wrote on July 31.

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