George Yong-Boon Yeo: ‘Trump is a bully. If you show weakness, he’ll be all over you… be firm but flexible’

Trump is a bully. If you have the cards, you will be OK, but if you don’t have the cards, he is going to extract the maximum from you. India cannot afford to look weak. If India just rolls over, it will lose its prestige and its reputation in the world. But to stand firm means you have to pay a price.

What is the price India should be prepared to pay?

India must diversify. An obvious immediate response is to repair relations with China. In any case, the US is also repairing its relations with China. There’s no sense in India being on its own. So now, we are seeing bilateral relations between India and China moving back to a more normalised state of affairs. In a multipolar world, India is its own pole. It can be friends with everybody and sit on every table. India is not in a bad position at all.

The problem is in the neighbourhood. India has problems with some of its neighbours. That has got to be managed and stabilised. The key is economics. If India continues to grow, in another 10-20 years, it will be a very big economy. All neighbours will want to be part of that larger economy and benefit from it. India can then conduct its foreign policy in a calmer way.

You were Foreign Minister of Singapore, wear that hat once again. In today’s wo­rld, if you were foreign minister, how would you advise fellow foreign min­isters to deal with Trump?

Trump respects strength. If you show weakness, he will be all over you. Unless you show a certain stiffness, a certain strength, he won’t respect you. But, of course, you may get hurt in the process, you may find your elbow twisted. Still it’s better to pay the price than to show weakness. Otherwise your life is completely subordinate to his will. Be firm but flexible.

Trump’s impulse of interventionism… we have seen Venezuela first and now, he has promised help to the protests in Iran.

Trump’s foreign policy is to dominate the Western hemisphere. He wants China and Russia to be kept out. That’s why he covets Canada and Greenland, and renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. If he moves into Greenland, uninvited, the Transatlantic Alliance will be ruptured. It’s already cracked. I’m not saying that the US is going to retreat from the world but there is a clear shift of emphasis which was reflected in the National Security Strategy paper issued a few weeks ago… Europe will have to calculate for itself. The multi-polar world is crystallising, and the crystallisation is taking place faster because of Trump’s actions.

You think India has the capacity to deliver, to become a pole in this multipolar world?

Of course, because it’s got a large population, it has the brain power. Its economy will become the third largest or second largest in the world as we move into mid-century. India has never been expansionist. But, of course, it wants to dominate the region. But can it impose a Monroe doctrine on South Asia? I don’t think it can do that, because you have the religious division which led to the partition of the subcontinent in the first place. This is not something which can easily be overcome.

And if India is too forceful, it will draw external powers into the subcontinent, and that cannot be in India’s interest. ASEAN has succeeded because Indonesia has acted with restraint. That’s a position India should want in South Asia — to exercise leadership by a certain restraint. But of course, if core interests are involved, then you got to act, but not to seek to dominate the subcontinent. Not that India even wants to. But sometimes, when an incident happens, the media gets excited, emotions well up, and the government may end up doing things which may cause regret later.

How do you see India’s China challenge as it faces a long and contested border?

There is no history of antagonism between India and China, except for the 1962 war. The 1962 war left behind a deep wound in India. Indians remember it as if it happened recently. In China, people can hardly remember what happened then. For them, it was just a border skirmish. There is, therefore, an asymmetry in response to border incidents like Galwan Valley. For India, it is almost like an old allergy coming back causing a neuralgic response. The Chinese wondered there were other intentions behind India’s reaction. It was clear that India then pivoted into some kind of a strategic alliance with the US against China.

When the Ukraine war broke out, India refused to disavow Russia despite US and European pressure. After the short air war between India and Pakistan, following the Pahalgam terrorist attack, India was disappointed, that far from supporting India, Trump invited the Pakistani Army chief to the White House for lunch.

With the US threatening mind-boggling tariffs on both India and China, it should not be surprising that India and China are now mending relations.

It will take time to demarcate the border as it was never done between the British Raj and Qing China. If Russia could delineate its longer border calmly despite fighting over it in the past, so too India with China. Once bilateral relations improve, it’ll be easier to be practical and make compromises.

The protests in Iran have been going on for about a fortnight now. What’s your prognosis of the current situation in Iran?

A major goal of US foreign policy is the defence of Israel. Israel has ambitions to be a bigger Israel, and sees Iran as a threat and an obstacle. American interest in Iran is really on behalf of Israel. Iran doesn’t threaten the US. As for the current protests, I see videos of protests for and against the Iranian government. Huge demonstrations in support of the government are not reported in the western media. Whom do I believe?

It is obvious that many Iranians are unhappy, and President (Masoud) Pezeshkian has acknowledged their grievances, taken responsibility. But it’s also obvious that the Americans and Israelis are fomenting trouble in Iran. Suddenly Trump is aghast that Iranians are being killed when he showed little concern for many more Gazans being killed.

I don’t know what special operations in Iran the Americans and Israelis are thinking of. It won’t be that easy to bring about regime change. The Iranians also have military capabilities and can seal off the Strait of Hormuz. They have a long civilization and a great sense of pride.

If you’re India or Singapore, is this your fight? This can’t be our fight. Do we stand on principles? We have to make statements about principles. But beyond that, we don’t really want to get too involved. I don’t think it is good for India to get entangled in this conflict.

Trump’s here for another three years, how do you see that playing out?

Right now, his obsession must be the midterms this year. If he loses control of one of the two houses of US Congress, the second half of his term may become a lame-duck administration. He will try to issue executive orders but they will be contested in the courts. After the midterms, many people will be thinking beyond him. Who are the potential successors to him on the Republican side? On the Democratic side, other leaders will be thrown up. Some of Trump’s policies will be reversed, but many cannot be. The Transatlantic Alliance cannot be repaired to what it was. The US can’t disentangle itself from Venezuela. The greatest uncertainty in the world is domestic politics in the US.