New Delhi, Aug. 2 -- At the heart of the rapidly souring India-US relations over the threat by President Donald Trump to impose 25% tariffs on New Delhi is a fundamental misreading of the notion of American friendship by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his advisers.

American society is generally given to hyperbole and expressions of accentuated superlatives even to describe things and situations in life that do not rise anywhere close to deserving them. It bears remembering that this is a society that casually uses "great" to describe any and all things. There are those who describe even bowel movement as great.

Of course, great in its pure sense means something or someone whose eminence or quality is far above average, distinguished b...