Trump’s MAGA Base is Split on Support of Israel’s Attacks on Iran

Donald Trump has been selling himself as the ambassador of peace around the world. But with peace elusive in Gaza, Ukraine or between Iran and Israel, he treated himself to a massive military parade in Washington DC.

The event, which coincided with the 250th anniversary of the US Army and Trump’s 79th birthday, has been greeted by memes and massive protests across the United States. More than anything else it seems to mark the many ways in which the Trump presidency is slipping up.

Peace is perhaps its biggest fumble. The big problem is deciding just who Trump supports when he puts on the hat of a mediator. Most would have no hesitation in saying that in Gaza, it is Israel which has felt emboldened by the Trump “peace” efforts to harden its stand against the already flattened Hamas. But it’s equally difficult to say whether the US is with its NATO allies on the issue of Ukraine or is simply looking the other way as Russia continues its attack on its neighbour.

As for India and Pakistan, Trump has insistently argued, much to New Delhi’s chagrin, that he is the one who brought peace between them last month. There is an additional problem, India insists that Trump is not, and has never been, the mediator, while Pakistan is hailing him for his role in bringing to an end the India-Pakistan 4-day war and has welcomed his offer to mediate on the Kashmir issue.

Whether or not the US is continuing to provide Israel with intelligence for targeting Iran is a matter of speculation. Also many experts say that without the massive Mother of all bombs (MOAB), the biggest non-nuclear explosive device, Israel cannot succeed in damaging or destroying the deeply buried Iran nuclear site at Fordow. Neither can it fulfil its mission of regime change in Teheran.

As of now the US position as laid out by Trump is that it has “nothing to do” with the Israeli attack on Iran. But he has expressed the hope that a chastened Iran would be willing to take up the deal he is offering. In his latest post he noted that he could get Iran and Israel to strike a deal, just as he had gotten “India and Pakistan to make” using trade as a lever. He then listed a number of conflicts he had helped resolve in his first term— between Serbia and Kosovo and Egypt and Ethiopia. But this is a developing story.

We may see Trump changing tack in the coming days to openly backing Israel. Note that Trump already has the reputation of being the most pro-Israeli American president in recent times.

The story with tariffs is the one that got Trump the nickname “TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out)." It began with the massive bombast of “Liberation Day” – April 2 – when Trump put high reciprocal tariffs on most of the world. On April 9, faced with a market meltdown, he reduced reciprocal tariffs to 10 % saying that he was giving 90 days to the countries to negotiate deals with the US. But in the case of China he increased the duties to 125 % and China retaliated by putting 84 % duties on US goods. China also announced the suspension of seven kinds of rare earths and metals on the grounds that these were dual use items that could have military uses.

On April 11, Trump upped the Chinese tariffs to 145%, by adding a 20 % “fentanyl surcharge.” China responded by upping its tariffs to 125 %. Effectively US-China trade came to a standstill.

Faced with this situation, what hurt immediately was the rare earths and magnets which had an impact on the automobile and defence sectors. The US came to heel and following talks between presidents Xi and Trump, an agreement was reached in Geneva agreed for a 90 day pause in the trade war on May 12 and both sides lowered their tariffs to 30 %.

The Geneva agreement broke down when the US said that China was going slow on the rare earths issue and put restrictions on some of Huawei’s Ascend chips. The Chinese expanded their restrictions on the rare earth exports whereupon the US retaliated by declaring restrictions on visas for Chinese students. Then, Xi and Trump had another long telephone conversation, and the two sides announced a new framework agreement on June 11^th.

This “framework agreement” maintains current tariff rates (US at 55% and China at 10%), the US will continue to maintain its restrictions on advanced semiconductors and includes Chinese commitments to issue export licenses for rare earth magnets for a period of six months.

It is true that India does not have any product like rare earth magnets which it can use as a lever against the US in trade negotiations. But the record shows that New Delhi did not even try. It simply folded and gave unilateral concessions to the US, even as they began to negotiate a bilateral trade deal with Washington DC. To coincide with this event India removed the Google Tax on companies that provided digital advertising services in the country without a physical presence. This immediately benefited the American giants, Google, Meta and Amazon and was seen as an advance peace offering for Trump. India could have joined hands with the EU which also wants to tax these companies for the same reason.

The US wants India to open its markets to genetically modified crops, to eliminate and ease price controls on medical devices, and to relax rules on data localization that mandates storage of data on local servers. In turn India wants the US to exempt India from tariffs on steel and automobiles, reciprocal tariffs and the proposed US duties on pharma products.

Trump has claimed that India is willing to offer zero tariffs, though the US is insisting that it will maintain 10 % tariffs on all nations. This is the outcome of a weak negotiations but even now it is not too late for New Delhi to toughen its stand.

And then, there is immigration. Last week raids in the garment sector in Los Angeles triggered protests to which Trump responded to by sending in the National Guard. Federal agents also began moving into the agricultural areas of California to launch a crackdown there. But Trump has now backed off here as well and has asked the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to largely pause raids and arrests in the agricultural sector, as well as the tourist and hotel industries. The campaign of deportation of so-called illegal immigrants is hurting these sectors and has a larger implication for his MAGA constituency. Estimates are that some 40% of agriculture workers have no legal immigration status.

Importantly, whether it is the selective approach to labour, or to war, Trump administration responses are triggering a rift in the MAGA movement. Hardliners want the immigration deportations to continue regardless of the sector. On the other hand, his MAGA base is split in support of Israel's war on Iran. Influential MAGA supporters like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Marjorie Taylor Greene have opposed US involvement saying that it goes against the commitment to keep the US out of foreign wars.

This is just the first five months of the Trump presidency. Just what the future holds for it is not clear. But you can be sure it will be rife with steps that soon become mis-steps for the Trump administration.

Manoj Joshi is a distinguished fellow with the Observer Research foundation in Delhi.

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.

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