Trump hoped PM Modi would back his Nobel Peace Prize bid, took it personally when it didn’t happen: Terril Jones

NEW DELHI: Leading American academic Terril Jones has shared his insights on current India-US relations under the Trump 2.0 administration.

Describing Donald Trump’s distinctive negotiating style, Jones said the former president sought to position himself as a global peace broker, including by claims of pushing for a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, which was firmly denied by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a response Trump reportedly took personally.

In an interview with ANI, when asked about the turn in the otherwise stable uniformity seen in the India-US ties built over the past decades, Jones called it a characteristic of Donald Trump’s administration.

“Policies do change quickly and are adapted quickly,” he said.

Speaking about Trump’s strategy, Jones said, “Donald Trump’s strategy is often to put out high demand and then negotiate down from that and then declare victory, and that may be what he’s doing now”.

According to Professor Terril Jones, Trump had hoped for a Nobel Peace Prize nomination from PM Modi. When it didn’t materialise, he took it personally, responding with trade tools like tariffs.

“Donald Trump wants to be a global player- not just economically but politically, geopolitically also. So he was very quick to claim credit for negotiating a peace settlement for the conflict between India and Pakistan in May, which Prime Minister Modi vigorously denied and said that, no, we don’t need to rely on the United States or anybody in our dealings with Pakistan. But Donald Trump was pushing that narrative and hoping that Prime Minister Modi would nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize. And when that didn’t happen, he takes it personally and then tends to, when he does take something personally like that, he reacts with tools that he has at his disposal. And as he has said many times, he thinks the word tariff is the most beautiful word in the English language,” he said.

Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for stopping hostilities between India and Pakistan after New Delhi’s effective response to Islamabad’s aggression following precision strikes on terror infrastructure under Operation Sindoor.

India has consistently refuted these statements, reiterating its policy that India and Pakistan bilaterally address any matter related to the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

Furthermore, regarding recent developments in India-China ties and Trump’s reaction to them, Terril Jones stated that the Chinese President, now in his third term, is increasingly viewing China as a global leader.

Jones added, “Which is one reason that we saw Prime Minister Modi get such a warm welcome in Tianjin when he was at the SCO summit last week. So that kind of realignment is something that I think we’ll see more of because things are becoming less predictable.”

Saying that Washington has turned “a lot” on its head, Jones said, “I think Xi Jinping is not afraid. He does not want to have the United States dictate terms.”

Highlighting that India and China, with a combined population of nearly 3 billion people, together form a significant bloc for leveraging.

“Xi Jinping and Modi can leverage to say- you know, we’ve got power. We’ve got leverage. We don’t necessarily need you, the United States. And unless you are going to deal with us on more favourable terms, and we over here, hey, we can work some things out that will be to our benefit”, Jones said.

Terril Jones has been a journalist for nearly 40 years, with 18 years spent overseas in Japan, China, and France, and the rest of the time in the United States, including at the United Nations in New York, Detroit for the auto industry, and Silicon Valley for covering technology. He is presently teaching international journalism. (ANI)