Dear Weekend Jolter,
India is famous for avoiding conventional alliances, preferring to balance ties with sundry nations that might not themselves get along. But an abrupt deterioration in the relationship between Delhi and Washington — which appears to be caused as much by personalities as by policy — may be driving India into the arms of America’s adversaries.
President Trump can, and should, repair this rift.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping earlier this week during his first visit to China in seven years. While there for a summit, Modi stressed the importance of “multilateralism and an inclusive world order.” More ominously, Xi told Modi it’s time for “the dragon and the elephant to come together.”
The visit and the warm words only served to highlight a stark breakdown in relations with America, reportedly stemming in part from a testy June phone call, as well as from Trump-imposed tariffs and other issues. The New York Times reported that, during the call, Trump talked up his role ending the recent military escalation between India and Pakistan and noted the latter’s intent to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize — a comment portrayed as an implicit nudge for Modi to do the same. But Modi reportedly pushed back and downplayed any U.S. role in the cease-fire.
Weeks later, Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on India, and last month, he brought it up to 50 percent as apparent punishment for Russian oil purchases. Even as Trump’s tariffs face fresh rebukes in court, his treatment of India has accelerated a diplomatic crack-up — a startling turn considering the two leaders’ once-strong personal relationship as well as shared national interests and concerns.
“In India, Mr. Trump is now seen in some quarters as a source of national humiliation,” the Times reported, revealing that the two leaders haven’t spoken since the June call. Meanwhile, Trump hosted Pakistan’s powerful army chief at the White House in June.
This diplomatic inversion makes little sense. American administrations have forged closer ties with India for years, seeing the country as a key regional partner and counterweight to the very nations whose leaders Modi met this week.
Dominic Pino, in the current issue of NR, lays out the inherent contradictions in Trump’s tariff blitz: India’s 50 percent rate is “higher than the 30 percent rate the U.S. has kept in place against Chinese goods during the twice-extended ‘truce,’ even though China buys more Russian oil than India does.” And “Pakistani goods face only a 19 percent tariff, even though Pakistan is much closer with China than India is.” But: Pakistan “nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize and made a handshake deal about cooperating on oil development.”
We shouldn’t underestimate the importance for Trump of the Nobel gesture. Nor should we underestimate how much it would hurt Modi’s “strongman” image to acknowledge bowing to U.S. pressure on Pakistan, as the Times noted. From India’s perspective, the desire to stay in Trump’s good graces is not going to outweigh its commitment in that decades-long conflict. (If you have any doubt about this, watch literally any part of the nationalistic, Top Gun–esque movie released in India last year, Fighter.)
Clifford Smith, also in NR, sorts through that history, up to and including April’s terror attack in the Kashmiri town of Pahalgam which triggered this year’s confrontation. He argues that America’s interests naturally align more with those of India — a pluralistic democracy and growing economic force, with shared concerns about China and radical Islam — here too:
There is certainly room to criticize India’s handling of the Kashmir dispute. India has played fast and loose with traditional legal procedures when dealing with Kashmiri militants and their sympathizers. But these are nothing compared with the acts of Pakistan, which has waged a region-defining proxy war, using violent terrorist groups that commit some of the worst atrocities imaginable. Just one example is that of Girija Tickoo, a Kashmiri Hindu teacher who was gang-raped and sawed in half for the crime of trying to collect her paycheck.
As Thérèse Shaheen writes, Modi’s presence this past week at the China security summit was “entirely preventable.” Hopefully, the tensions amount to little more than a blip. But the onus is on Washington to soothe them.
Amity Shlaes recently wrote about the similarities in style between Teddy Roosevelt and Donald Trump, drawing from Edmund Morris’s biography Theodore Rex. One bit that stands out from that book is the subject’s special attention to the need to save face during delicate diplomacy (“It always pays for a nation to be a gentleman”). Trump, to put it mildly, is not following that advice with India. And on tariffs, his tactics are the wrong way to seek the right outcome — India’s separation from Russia — as Clifford Smith writes: “India was slowly moving away from Russia, and Modi’s public humiliation by Trump is creating a backlash in India. Private talks and incentives are more likely to pay dividends.” If Donald Trump has any interest in repairing the U.S.-India bond, which he should, he’ll need to set aside his Nobel dreams, for now, and put his New York schmooze to work on a neglected partner.
NAME. RANK. LINK.
EDITORIALS
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The tariffs must go: The Tariff Power Still Belongs Only to Congress
This is not improving the CDC’s image: RFK Jr. Is Compounding the CDC’s Covid Mistakes
Happy Labor Day: Celebrating the Decline of Big Labor
ARTICLES
Jim Geraghty: Malcolm Gladwell Reaches His Tipping Point on Trans Athletes
Jim Geraghty: Want to Stop Zohran Mamdani? Give Curtis Sliwa a Hand
Andrew McCarthy: Are We at War with Venezuela?
David McCormick: Some European Nations Are Taking National Security Seriously
Christian Schneider: American Universities Are Schooling China on Authoritarian Tactics
Gregory W. Slayton: Time to Force Putin to the Negotiating Table
Charles C. W. Cooke: England’s Arrest of Graham Linehan Was an Act of Calculated Tyranny
Audrey Fahlberg: Trump Just Can’t Shake the Epstein Scandal. Thomas Massie Is Doing His Best to Keep It That Way
Rich Lowry: Did Jeffrey Epstein Really Kill Himself?
Rich Lowry: Government by Emergency Is a Bad Idea
Haley Strack: Education Department Vows to Protect Virginia Students from Transgender Madness: ‘We’re in This Fight’
Sarah Schutte & Co.: Read This, Not That: Back-to-School Edition
Abigail Anthony: Insights from a 1949 Guide for Housewives
Itxu Díaz: The Ethos of the Left Is Fracturing Friendships
Jeffrey Blehar: Taylor Lorenz Has the Goods (Really) on the Left’s Paid Online Influencers
Jeffrey Blehar: Brandon Johnson Offers Chicago the Counsel of Despair
CAPITAL MATTERS
Paul Winfree, with wise words: America Didn’t Become Rich Through Government Ownership
LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW.
“Hollywood can’t go on making movies like this.” Armond White holds nothing back: The Roses Is a Hellish Remake
An entire exhibition devoted to cats — what’s not to like? Brian Allen pounces on this one: Cats in Medieval Manuscripts: Prancing, Prowling, and Pounding the Ivories
LEAVES ARE FALLING ALL AROUND, TIME TO READ EXCERPTS
Rich Lowry has the definitive piece on what the record shows on the circumstances of Jeffrey Epstein’s death. It begins like so:
There wasn’t much news in the Ghislaine Maxwell interviews with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche recently, but we did learn that Maxwell doesn’t think Jeffrey Epstein killed himself.
In this, she has lots of company.
The Miami Herald reporter who originally brought the Epstein story to light, Julie Brown, who knows more about the case than anyone else, doubts that he killed himself.
Jim Acosta had a respectful podcast interview with Epstein’s brother, Mark, who says Jeffrey was murdered.
Alan Dershowitz, not going that far, still thinks that prison personnel deliberately sought to make it easier for Epstein to kill himself.
A well-known pathologist, Michael Baden, says Epstein’s injuries are seen more often in a homicide than a suicide.
CBS News has cast doubt on the value of the jail video recently released by the Department of Justice to try to prove that no one could have entered his cell the night he died.
An August Economist/YouGov poll found that 50 percent of Americans think Epstein was murdered, while only 16 percent believe he killed himself. This is a bipartisan conviction — 53 of Democrats and 51 percent of Republicans believe that he was killed.
Given the number of high-profile people who had dealings with Epstein and presumably had reason to fear what he had to tell authorities, given the mysteries of the case that will probably never be solved (where did Epstein get all his money?), and given the concatenation of odd things that happened in the prison before he showed up dead, it’s understandable that people have doubts that he really committed suicide.
“Asking questions” needn’t be only an excuse for spreading conspiracy theories, or airing antisemitic content; it can be a useful exercise in interrogating official stories and conventional wisdom. So, in that spirit, let’s ask questions about Epstein’s death.
Charlie Cooke reacts with appropriate shock at another speech-related arrest, in the West:
Here is the first line of a story in today’s Guardian, a British newspaper:
“The writer of TV’s Father Ted has been arrested at Heathrow over three social media posts on transgender issues.”
If you click the link and scroll down, you’ll see that there is more to the piece than that one sentence. But there doesn’t need to be. The whole tale is contained within those 19 words. If you read on, you will find no complicating factors or exculpatory details or sins of omission. The news is exactly as it appears: In England, yesterday afternoon, the police deliberately arrested a man who was flying in from the United States because he had expressed views on Twitter that the British government does not like. England — not North Korea, or Russia, or China. England — the land of John Stuart Mill and Thomas Paine and Monty Python. For tweets on transgender issues. Tweets — not threats of imminent violence, or a credible vow to blow up the airport upon arrival. Tweets — on issues about which people profoundly disagree.
Since I moved to the United States in 2011, I have been chronicling the increasingly illiberal attitude to free expression that has been adopted in my country of birth. But this one, I will confess, surprised even me. Typically, I appeal to the First Amendment as the quintessential example of how things ought to be. Here, I do not have to go that far. Here, it is the British censorial attitude, not American permissiveness, that is the outlier on the world stage. I have no brief for Canada or Germany or New Zealand, but, bad as they may be when compared to the United States, I cannot imagine that any of them would have engaged in the same behavior given the same facts. This one was egregious on an entirely new scale.
The worst part, I think, is that it happened at Heathrow Airport. Why? Because that confirms that it was planned. Sometimes, police officers overreact or act rashly or misinterpret the law. But this was as deliberate and premeditated as it gets. Having seen a trio of social-media posts of which it disapproved, the Metropolitan Police saw fit to track a man down as he traversed international waters, and to intercept him before he could enter the country.
Jim Geraghty offers some friendly advice to New York City voters:
The eighth guest in the history of the Three Martini Lunch podcast is the GOP’s mayoral candidate in New York City, Curtis Sliwa.
I would point out that in the right-of-center media nationwide, a ton of ink (electrons? airtime?) has been spilled about the potential threat that Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani represents to the city — justifiably. But much, much less attention has been paid to Sliwa, the only right-of-center option to prevent that outcome. Friday’s podcast is an effort to remind conservatives inside and outside of the city that while there’s no getting around the fact that Sliwa is an underdog in the mayoral race, Mamdani’s victory is not a done deal yet. There’s still time to attempt to change the outcome.
As Sliwa discusses in our interview, he’s got a plan and strategy to build short-term, issue-based alliances with the heavily Democratic city council. He will appear as the GOP candidate and as the candidate on the Protect Animals line — yes, he is seriously making a pitch for the city’s “cat lady” vote. And he wants to hire 7,000 new cops — both uniformed officers and detectives to solve the crimes currently going unsolved, and catch the perpetrators currently uncaught.
And as he points out, he’s the one candidate in the mayoral race who doesn’t see Gracie Mansion as a steppingstone to some other higher office. While ineligible for the presidency, Mamdani is already being touted as “the Democratic Party’s future” and “a roadmap to beat Trump.” Andrew Cuomo’s presidential ambitions are the worst-kept secret in New York. And in the past, Eric Adams has “joked” about how he should run for president. Considering all the problems New York City faces, wouldn’t it be nice to have a mayor who actually wants to focus on his day job?
Second, dispel any thoughts that any of these candidates are going to drop out and endorse their opponents to stop Mamdani. It’s just not in their nature. Also note that the last five polls have put incumbent Adams between 7 percent and 11 percent, so even if Adams were to drop out, there’s not that much support to reallocate to other candidates.
If you’re a right-of-center voter in New York City, the priority of stopping Mamdani is completely understandable. Giving your vote to Adams or Cuomo isn’t. One’s a failed incumbent, the other, in Sliwa’s words, has a record of “slapping fannies and killing grannies.”
And for what it’s worth, in quite a few polls, Sliwa’s third place doesn’t look that far back from Cuomo’s second place. If the mid-July HarrisX poll has a good reading, and in a four-way race, Mamdani is at 26 percent, Cuomo is at 23 percent and Sliwa is at 22 percent, why should Sliwa be the one to drop out?
Finally, the argument that Mamdani, by being such a far-left ideologue, could help Republican messaging in 2026 midterms is not a crazy one, but it represents being penny-wise and pound foolish. Sure, Mamdani can become the new AOC or Nancy Pelosi, the unappealing face of left-wing extremism cited in GOP commercials in every swing district and every swing state. But in the process, Mamdani will be running New York City into the ground, and economically, what happens in New York City ends up having far-reaching effects for the rest of the country.
CODA
Who knew there were so many Procol Harum fans out there? Thank you to NR newsletter world for sending over loads of song recs in response to last weekend’s Coda inquiry about a band this author has overlooked, till now.
Steve Philpott recommended the entirety of the Broken Barricades album. Robert wrote in with a whole mess of songs, including “A Christmas Camel” (which hooks you right away) and “Grand Hotel.” Several named “Conquistador” and the hit “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” Again, thanks. This makes for a fine primer; I’ll get to work educating myself.
Enjoy, and thanks for reading.