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Trump’s showmanship meets its limits in Kashmir—India will not let a sovereign issue become a bargaining chip for third-party theatrics
Image Source: Getty
In the unfolding chronicle of American diplomacy under Donald Trump’s second administration, it becomes increasingly evident that grand gestures have replaced grounded strategy, and spectacle has replaced substance. From Gaza to Kabul, from the halls of Riyadh to the hinterlands of Yemen, Trump’s foreign policy has offered not so much a vision as a vendetta against complexity itself—a stubborn refusal to grapple with the messy realities of international affairs.
This pattern of ill-fated engagement has now arrived— uninvited and ill-prepared—at the gates of the Indian subcontinent, where Trump’s casual musings about mediating between India and Pakistan on Kashmir have stirred more indignation than interest in New Delhi. Trump’s interventionist overture reveals not diplomatic dexterity but diplomatic delusion. The United States (US) cannot presume to mediate where it neither comprehends the stakes nor commands the moral authority to do so.
From Gaza to Kabul, from the halls of Riyadh to the hinterlands of Yemen, Trump’s foreign policy has offered not so much a vision as a vendetta against complexity itself—a stubborn refusal to grapple with the messy realities of international affairs.
Kashmir is not a diplomatic sideshow. It is a core sovereign issue for India—a matter embedded in history, culture, blood, and emotion. To suggest that a Western power, one as inconsistent as the current American administration, could step in as a neutral arbiter is not merely fanciful but also offensive. India’s rejection of any third-party mediation is not posturing; it is principle. This principle stems from lived experience, wherein Western ‘neutrality’ has often masked an unmistakable tilt toward Pakistan and a reluctance to confront the realities of Islamabad’s enduring sponsorship of terrorism.
Moreover, examined in full, Trump's record does little to assuage these concerns. Instead, it strengthens them.
Where, one might ask, has Trump’s mediation succeeded? In the Middle East, his second term has already produced a string of abortive initiatives. In Gaza, the much-publicised ‘Riviera Plan’ was abandoned almost as quickly as it was unveiled. Trump’s clumsy threats—‘all hell will break loose’—sounded more like reckless bluster than careful diplomacy expected from a statesman stewarding peace. His envoys vanished, momentum stalled, and the region returned to war.
In the West Bank, chaos reigns. Despite his grandiose promises, Trump has not delivered a substantial policy. The touted normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia has faltered, not because Trump failed to press Israel to concede anything meaningful to the Palestinians. This was classic Trump—pursuing a deal without paying the price of diplomacy, hoping image alone could substitute for institutional architecture.
With Iran, Trump’s boasts of a superior nuclear accord have yielded nothing but stagnation. Tehran, facing sanctions and surrounded by internal dissent, was positioned for leverage. Yet Washington’s incoherence—swerving between maximalist demands and vague inducements— rendered diplomacy impossible. What began as an opportunity for measured realignment ended in entropy and missed opportunity.
While Europe, the Gulf, and Türkiye moved to influence the rebuilding of Syria, Washington stood inert, trapped by ideological rigidity and blinded by suspicion.
Perhaps the most damning example of strategic paralysis took place in Syria, where Trump froze the US engagement at precisely the moment the post-Assad transitional order was taking shape. While Europe, the Gulf, and Türkiye moved to influence the rebuilding of Syria, Washington stood inert, trapped by ideological rigidity and blinded by suspicion. The result: despite Trump’s belated decision to lift sanctions on Syria, the US was absent from one of the most critical diplomatic realignments in the region.
His Afghan policy, a paradox of betrayed promises, marries hubris with myopia. While white Afrikaners have found sanctuary in the US, loyal Afghan allies face expulsion. This moral dissonance reflects not strategy but whim—abandoning those who bled for America, thus fracturing credibility in a world already shifting toward chaos.
Trump’s promises to end deadly conflicts have proved little more than gratuitous attempts at self-congratulation, devoid of follow-through or structural substance. Nevertheless, he presumes/continues to mediate on Kashmir.
From the Indian perspective, it is not simply that Trump lacks credibility—it is that he lacks comprehension. His foreign policy, whether in the Middle East or South Asia, exhibits a studied refusal to understand regional histories, cultural contexts, or enduring power asymmetries. Kashmir is not a bargaining chip; it is India’s sovereign responsibility. To equate the world’s largest democracy with a country that has repeatedly used Islamist terror as statecraft is to betray a fundamental geopolitical reality.
India has long maintained its stance that there can be no meaningful progress in India-Pakistan relations until Islamabad is held accountable for its patronage of cross-border terrorism.
Moreover, India has long maintained its stance that there can be no meaningful progress in India-Pakistan relations until Islamabad is held accountable for its patronage of cross-border terrorism. The US, despite intermittently acknowledging this reality, has never moved decisively to impose costs on Pakistan. American policy oscillates between indulgence and neglect – stern words but soft consequences. As long as Washington treats Pakistan as an indispensable—if not problematic— partner, it cannot claim credibility as an impartial mediator.
This sentiment is further underscored by the broader texture of Trump’s faulty approach to global diplomacy, which often privileges spectacle over substance. His offer to mediate between India and Pakistan appears less a considered initiative than an impulsive boast – aimed more at stirring domestic applause from the ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) loyalists than achieving any durable outcome. It reflects a familiar pattern in his foreign affairs approach: sweeping declarations divorced from statecraft's hard realities. From claiming he could end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours” to announcing the Houthis had “capitulated” after limited airstrikes, Trump has repeatedly declared victory prematurely. But when faced with the complexities and endurance required for actual peace-making, his initiatives unravel, exposing the superficiality of a diplomacy driven more by image than intent.
While professing a doctrine of retrenchment, the Trump administration has paradoxically flirted with the vocabulary—and occasionally the conduct—of imperial ambition. Idle threats of military intervention in Mexico, nostalgic yearnings to ‘reclaim’ the Panama Canal, and the fantastical musings of annexing Canada or Greenland, reveal a foreign policy posture as disoriented as it is discordant. This bizarre mélange of retreat and reach bewilders allies, emboldens adversaries, leaving the impression that we are trapped in an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ situation.
To many globally, the US under Trump increasingly resembles not a superpower but a merchant republic—trading influence for contracts, alliances for access, principles for praise. The recent surge in Trump family business dealings across the Gulf—including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—casts a long shadow over any diplomatic initiative. Can a country whose foreign policy appears inseparable from personal financial interest claim neutrality in South Asia? The question answers itself.
Furthermore, New Delhi has watched with growing unease as the Trump administration applies uneven pressure across the region. There is indulgence in Pakistan, dithering in Türkiye, and incoherence in Afghanistan. Against this backdrop, India, despite its democratic credentials, rising economic influence, and increasingly aligned interests with the West, receives little concrete support or strategic consideration. This double standard undermines trust and reinforces a historical scepticism rooted in India’s long and often disillusioning experience with Western diplomacy.
India, despite its democratic credentials, rising economic influence, and increasingly aligned interests with the West, receives little concrete support or strategic consideration.
If India-Pakistan relations are to progress, they must begin not in Washington but in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, with a decisive break from terrorism and a willingness to acknowledge regional realities. Until the US is prepared to punish Pakistan for its duplicity, instead of coddling it under the guise of counterterrorism cooperation, any American role will be seen as uninvited interference.
History is not merely a record of what happened, but a cautionary tale of what was misunderstood. Trump’s overtures in the Middle East and Europe–and now in South Asia–are not merely missteps; they are dangerous misunderstandings dressed up as smart diplomacy. They remind us that statecraft is not performance, but discipline; not vanity, but vision; not deal-making, but endurance.
In Indian eyes, the answer is clear. The path to regional peace does not lie in hastily convened meetings or media spectacles, but in the quiet, unspectacular work of accountability, trust-building, and strategic clarity. Unless the Trump administration is prepared to confront Pakistan, rein in the adventurism of its military establishment, and engage India as a genuine partner in the Indo-Pacific, it must refrain from interference.
‘Operation Sindoor’, India’s calibrated but firm response to cross-border terrorism, exemplified a posture of strategic restraint coupled with unambiguous resolve. These strikes reaffirmed India’s red lines against state-sponsored terror and publicly unmasked Pakistan’s entrenched infrastructure of jihad, long sheltered behind the fig leaf of ‘plausible deniability’. Yet in Trump’s erratic foreign policy, a false parity persists between aggressor and victim – a symmetry as hazardous as misguided. Such moral equivalence is strategic self-deception.
Trump’s temperament is transactional, his interest episodic, and his worldview shaped more by flattery than facts. Kashmir is too important to be subordinated to the theatrics of Trumpian diplomacy.
Vinay Kaura (PhD) is an Assistant Professor of International Affairs and Security Studies and Deputy Director at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Sardar Patel University of Police, Rajasthan.
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Vinay Kaura PhD is Assistant Professor in the Department of International Affairs and Security Studies and Deputy Director of Centre for Peace &: Conflict Studies ...
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