The fallout from Davos is not just in Europe
January 23, AD2026
This week I’ll keep it a little short because the Davos/World Economic Forum fallout is happening. But one thing is sure, the winner was China.
Europe, Canada, and India—yes India—made moves toward deals and accommodation with China. Reasons go beyond trade: just because the American government is led by a movement that does not believe in international law, does not mean the rest of the world agrees. That matters.
The era of Pax Americana is not ending due to the rise of declared adversaries like China. It is unraveling because America’s presumptive allies are quietly—deliberately not drawing too much attention from US media—preparing for a world where Washington is no longer the center of the world. This includes a country like India, whose leader thought he had the respect of America’s president.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent strategic pivot should worry Americans.
Faced with a capricious United States India is building internal resilience and pragmatically engaging with everyone—even rivals like China.
This century, the assumption in New Delhi was that shared values and a mutual wariness of Beijing would cement a special relationship with the United States. The 2025 return of Donald Trump shattered this illusion. Just smashed it.
Instead of a strategic embrace, Modi was greeted with 50% tariffs on Indian exports. It woke India up.
Just as the Global South has long viewed American "liberal interventionism" with suspicion, Modi has learned that American friendship offers no immunity against American protectionism. So from the Indian perspective what is the point of siding with America against China? American answers to that question range from self-deception to fear-mongering; which India does not want to hear.
In response, Modi has accelerated a plan of internal reforms designed to make India the world’s third largest economy by 2030: deregulation in labor laws, bankruptcy codes, and manufacturing incentives.
India already makes a fifth of the world’s iPhones and its manufacturing is only growing. For India, winning does not mean directly antagonizing the US, but building immunity, so that like China it can begin to ignore the Americans.
I’ll have an update tomorrow.
(l’esprit de l’escalier, corrected 1/24/2026)
