World held hostage to tantrumps!

Raju Korti
For years, I grew up hearing the famous line attributed to President Bill Clinton that South Asia was the most dangerous place on Earth. He said it in 2000, with Kashmir and the nuclear standoff between India and Pakistan in mind. Today, I find myself revising that thought. South Asia remains fragile, but the most dangerous place on Earth may well be the Oval Office.

Donald Trump’s America has become unpredictable to the point of peril. What alarms me is not merely his policies, but his open contempt for restraint. In a revealing interview to The New York Times, Trump brushed aside international law with astonishing ease. When asked what limits his global power, his answer was chillingly simple. Only his own mind, his own morality. He does not need international law, he said, even while claiming he is not looking to hurt people. He later added that the United States does follow international law, but only when he decides it applies. In that single contradiction lies the essence of the danger.

Caricature courtesy Shutterstock

For decades, America projected power through alliances, rules and institutions. Trump is tearing that scaffolding apart. His casual talk of owning Greenland, not leasing it or securing it through treaties but owning it, reduces geopolitics to real estate. Ownership, he said, is psychologically needed for success. When a sitting US President speaks this way about sovereign territory, it sends shockwaves far beyond Europe. NATO members are already feeling the heat. Trump has openly suggested that preserving NATO and acquiring Greenland may present a choice. His Vice President J D Vance has warned Europe that if it does not take its security seriously, America may have to do something about it. Allies are no longer partners. They are liabilities or assets, depending on Trump’s mood.

Trump’s approach to China and Taiwan is equally revealing. He has all but personalised deterrence, suggesting that Xi Jinping will not move against Taiwan simply because Trump is in office. After him, all bets are off. This is not strategy. It is bravado masquerading as stability. It also signals to Beijing, Moscow and others that global order hinges not on institutions, but on one man’s presence.

Russia, meanwhile, is invoked as both threat and foil. Trump boasts that Russia fears no one but the United States and claims that without him, Ukraine would already have fallen. Such statements may thrill his supporters, but they hollow out diplomacy and reduce complex conflicts to self-congratulation.

What worries me equally is Trump’s growing withdrawal from the international system itself. He has signed a Presidential Memorandum directing the United States to exit 66 international organisations, including 31 UN bodies. This is not reform. It is retreat combined with coercion. America wants freedom from rules, but full freedom to impose its will.

Nowhere is this more visible than in regime change politics, which under Trump is no longer whispered but flaunted. Operation Absolute Resolve in January 2026, the brazen attempt to seize Nicolás Maduro in Caracas, marked a turning point. No deniability, no camouflage. Just force. The message was blunt. Obey, or be overthrown.

The pattern is old, but the shamelessness is new. From Noriega in Panama to Saddam Hussein in Iraq, from Jean Bertrand Aristide in Haiti to Imran Khan in Pakistan, leaders who defied American interests were removed. Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina’s ouster in 2024, widely presented as a student uprising, now appears far more calculated. Her refusal to cede St Martin’s Island reportedly sealed her fate. Regime change is no longer an exception. It is a tool.

Venezuela explains the motive clearly. Oil. With reserves touching 300 billion barrels, control over Venezuela gives Washington leverage over nearly a fifth of global supply. Energy has become a weapon. India may soon be forced to buy Venezuelan oil that America itself banned earlier. That is not free trade. It is coercion.

India, therefore, cannot afford naivety. We sit in a neighbourhood already scarred by intervention. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal. To believe India is immune would be dangerous folly. The attack here may not come with soldiers. It will come through narratives that erode legitimacy, through whispers that democracy is stolen, that India is not a nation. Repeat a lie often enough, and institutions begin to wobble.

Trump’s tantrums also betray a deeply personal insecurity. His repeated claims of having stopped multiple wars, his visible frustration at being denied the Nobel Peace Prize by Norway, and his exaggerated self-portrayal as the sole global peacemaker point to a man desperate for validation. In this context, the renewed focus on global crises also serves another purpose. There is a growing perception that Trump is deflecting attention from the Epstein files and uncomfortable questions closer home. When domestic scrutiny tightens, the world becomes a convenient distraction.

How does the American public see all this? From what I gather, the country appears deeply split. To his supporters, Trump is a strongman who gets things done and forces the world to bend. To others, he represents the erosion of America’s moral authority and institutional sanity. What is undeniable is that America itself feels more volatile, more inwardly angry, and more prone to political violence than at any time in recent memory.

India’s relationship with Trump illustrates both danger and resilience. Prime Minister Modi’s repeated refusal to engage on Trump’s terms speaks volumes. Invitations declined. Phone calls unanswered. From the G7 in Canada to White House optics with Pakistan’s army chief, to Gaza talks in Egypt, India chose distance over spectacle. These were not scheduling issues. They reflected mistrust and an assertion of sovereignty. Trump’s attempts to spin these rebuffs only make him appear petulant and politically immature.

So how can Trump be contained in his free spree? The hard truth is that no one will come to save any nation. Maduro met China hours before his abduction. It did not help. Russia supplied weapons. It did not intervene. When the storm comes, every country stands alone.

For India, the answer lies in realism, not romance. Nationalism not as rhetoric, but as policy. Strategic autonomy not as a slogan, but as preparation. Strong defence, self-reliant industry, robust intelligence and social cohesion. Not blind faith in shared values, but clear-eyed understanding that power respects only strength.

As I look at Trump’s America today, I do not see a stabilising force. I see a nation turned inward, erratic outward, and increasingly dangerous to the very order it once built. When global power is guided by impulse rather than principle, by grievance rather than vision, the world becomes a more anxious place. And in that anxiety, every country, including India, must learn again the oldest lesson of geopolitics. In the end, you are on your own.