Congress Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor said Sunday that Donald Trump’s presidency in the White House creates an unpredictable global environment. He said that although the United States president’s statements should not always be taken literally, they must be taken seriously.
At an interaction with Tharoor in Pune, Crossword Bookstores CEO Aakash Gupta remarked that Trump can’t be taken seriously. Replying, Tharoor said, “On Trump, you can’t take him literally, but you do need to take him seriously. He is the President of the US, and the decisions he makes can affect policies, and policies affect us.”
Tharoor continued, “So, take him seriously but don’t take him literally, not every word. Him saying ‘the (India’s) economy is dead’ is like a schoolboy at a playground saying ‘your mother is ugly’. It is meant to be an insult, not meant to be taken seriously.”
Tharoor was referring to Trump’s comments last week after announcing 25 per cent tariffs on imports from India, along with a penalty for procuring military equipment and energy from Russia. Trump hit out at India and Russia and said the two “can take their dead economies down together”.
Responding to a question about changing international politics, Tharoor said, “It’s a turbulent world, and especially with Mr Trump in the White House, it’s an unpredictable world. There are a number of developments which I don’t think even experts can easily predict. Certainly, the entire impact of Mr Trump’s tariff policies over the last six months or so has taken the whole world back.”
“And we have had a bit of a jolt ourselves from which we are going to have to recover, because the American relationship, and I don’t just mean the trade relationship, the strategic partnership is important enough for us to want to make a real effort to make this work,” he added.
Speaking about ongoing conflicts that have shaken geopolitics and human rights around the world, he said, “When I wrote the book (The New World Disorder and the Indian Imperative) five years ago, there was no Ukraine War, there was no Gaza conflict. Therefore, we are now seeing the credibility of the United Nations (UN) Charter and the Security Council cast into question.”
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Tharoor said in both cases, there seems to be no end in sight, and the wars are being conducted with the active involvement of some of the biggest powers in the world.
“That means that people who are supposed to be upholding world order are contributing to disorder,” he added.
