AA Edit | The Art of Dealing With Trump

Decoding the mysteries of the universe may be a simpler task than finding some level of equanimity in dealing with the US President Donald Trump. World leaders have been wrestling with the complexity of being nice to him, but without being quite able to divine how to go about it when Mr Trump crosses the verbal Rubicon. Do they lump it and leave it or do they take on the personality who is avowedly the world’s most powerful man, even if he is one who may soon be flying in a hand-me-down Qatari jet?

Only a few have cracked the code of the art of dealing with Mr Trump. As he oscillates between gushing about world leaders like China’s supremo Xi Jinping and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and castigating the likes of Giorgia Meloni, ostensibly because he is miffed with the Europeans, specifically the Italians, for not supporting him in the US-Israel war against Iran, most leaders appear uncertain in their response or go by the wisdom of discretion being the better part of valour.

Not so Ms Meloni who gave back as good as she got when Mr Trump, somewhat diminished after seeking a bad deal with Iran to stop the war, demeaned her by saying she was begging repeatedly for a selfie shoot with him during the G-7. Having come out in support of Pope Leo when he was under fire too from Mr Trump for decrying the Iran war, the Italian PM has gone for broke in telling Mr Trump off as a liar who made up the story about a selfie.

Psychologists, who may be having a field day trying to unravel the enigma of Mr Donald Trump, arrived at conclusions not complimentary to the US President. Leaders who must deal with him regularly in diplomacy do not have the same privilege of talking truth to power. A few like Canada’s Mark Carney and Italy’s Meloni seem to have found the gumption to stand up when bullied.

The task may be trickier for Mr Modi who must now decide whether being nice to Mr Trump is a national compulsion or if he should be realistic in calling out US disenchantment with India as a strategic partner and take a robust stand on the trade deal to further his reputation as a tough negotiator that has been endowed on him by the US President himself.