The day began on a business note. Asked whether Elon Musk, earlier in the day, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi for personal business or as a representative of the US government, President Donald Trump said it could well be for his companies. He also immediately added that it was very difficult to do business in India, especially because of tariffs.

The day also ended on a business note. After the summit meeting, both Trump and Modi spelled out a list of interstate business deals. No flourish of high principles impeded the flow of business. No “defining relationship of the century”, as Barack Obama would often say. Beyond the tired rhetoric of friendship between the world’s largest democracy and its oldest, democracy or freedom, as terms of discourse, did not figure in the public statements.

This was neither surprising nor unexpected. For both Modi and Trump, winning elections is the only meaning of democracy. It is not a higher value to be promoted, nor does it mean enlarging the sphere of citizen freedoms. Indeed, during the press conference, Trump spoke of his great desire to strike deals with China’s President Xi Jinping, saying Covid put a serious pause, in his first term, to an emerging personal warmth between them as well as a possibility of deepening state-level cooperation.

What matters to Trump is how powerful a country is, not how undemocratic it might be. Vladimir Putin remains an object of fascination for him, and the idea that the less powerful Ukraine should, and........

© Indian Express