Trump spoilt India ties over Nobel obsession, ‘Pakistan's money to son’: Top Democrat blasts US tariff policy

Top Democratic leader Rahm Emanuel has blamed President Donald Trump's ego for having “thrown away 40 years of meticulous strategic planning” with India over his Nobel Peace Prize desire. He also raised serious questions over Trump's coziness towards Pakistan, saying his son was getting money from Islamabad.

“He threw it all away because Modi would not say that the President deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for the ceasefire (with Pakistan),” Emanuel, a former aide of Barack Obama who also served as ambassador to Japan during Trump's administration until recently.

India, which has been hit by 50% tariffs, has maintained that the truce to pause the Operation Sindoor — its action against terror bases to avenge an attack in Kashmir — was its own call after a request from the Pak army. But Trump has said at least 50 times that he forced India and Pakistan into submission by threatening them with 200% tariffs.

Emanuel said in an interview earlier this week that, for the US, India could have been “a major counterweight against China both on the manufacturing and technology side, but also on the military side".

“The president of the United States has literally thrown away 40 years of meticulous strategic planning and preparation and enhancing and warming the relationship through Democratic and Republican administrations, even his first administration,” he said.

He also alleged that Trump acted “out of ego and out of money from Pakistan, that was paying both his son and (Trump aide Steve) Witkoff's son”.

This was a reference apparently to Zach Witkoff, a co-founder of a company that signed a deal with the Pakistan Crypto Council in April 2025 to advance digital financial transactions. Donald Trump's sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, reportedly hold stakes in the firm.

Rahm Emanuel, a former investment banker, served three terms in the US House of Representatives from 2003 to 2009. He was the White House chief of staff from 2009 to 2010 under President Obama and served as mayor of Chicago from 2011 to 2019.