New Delhi, Aug. 13 -- A fortnight after Donald Trump won the US presidential election in November 2024, Rahul Roy-Chaudhuri, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, was speaking at a global conference on Trump in Naples, Italy. "I noticed that the Europeans were very pessimistic, whereas the Indians were optimistic-cautious, but optimistic. They were upbeat about Trump," said Roy-Chaudhuri, a specialist in South Asian affairs, who was presenting a paper on the Indian perspective.

Now, days after Trump announced a stiff new tariff regime and secondary sanctions against India, the London-based strategic analyst wonders, "Did we get that wrong? Were the Europeans right after all?"

He's not the only one left be...