Former US ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, has criticised the Donald Trump administration for its treatment of India, saying Washington has “literally spit on their face”.
Rahm Emanuel, who has held various positions under the Barack Obama and Joe Biden administrations, said that bringing India closer to the US has been a 30-year project under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
“America has literally spit in India’s face under the Trump administration. Bringing India closer to the US has been a 30-year project for every US president. I would not do what Trump has done,” Rahm Emanuel said at an event at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Who is Rahm Emanuel?
Few are as familiar with Washington as the 66-year-old Rahm Emanuel, a onetime congressman from Illinois who helped power Democrats to overwhelming victories in the 2006 midterms. That is an election year which some in the party are looking to for inspiration as they try to retake control of Congress in the midterms later this year.
Emanuel became White House chief of staff to President Barack Obama before being elected to two terms as Chicago mayor. He was the US ambassador to Japan under President Joe Biden.
Now Emanuel is considering a White House bid of his own in 2028. In the early stages of that contest, several Democratic governors, including Gavin Newsom of California and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, have received the most attention. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear made an aggressive move of his own last week by travelling to Vice President JD Vance‘s home county in Ohio to deliver a searing critique of the man who could become a leading candidate for the next Republican presidential nomination.
India-US relations under Donald Trump
India’s relationship with the US has been strained since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January last year. The mercurial Republican imposed punitive tariffs on Indian goods due to New Delhi buying Russian oil, something he has been okay with ever since his war with Iran sent the crude prices around the world soaring.
India and the US are still negotiating a trade deal that has seemed to be going nowhere. He has also been critical of the H-1B visa, a path to the US that most Indian skilled workers use, and has sought to remove it.
Trump has also sought credit for ending India’s conflict with Pakistan after last year’s Operation Sindoor, another claim that New Delhi has repeatedly denied. Under the current administration, the US has grown closer to Pakistan, with the country’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, drawing praise from Trump and, in turn, the Republican getting a shoutout for a Nobel Peace Prize from Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
