Trump's initial motive to hug American was duplicitous (10)
I believe the answer is:
treasonous
'duplicitous' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives. Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'trump's initial motive to hug american' is the wordplay.
'initial' says to take the initial letters.
'motive' becomes 'reason' (reason is a kind of motive).
'to hug' becomes 'o' (O can represent a hug in written messages).
'american' becomes 'us' (abbreviation for United States).
The first letter of 'trumps' is 't'.
't'+'reason'+'o'+'us'='TREASONOUS'
'was' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for treasonous that I've seen before include "criminal" , "subversive" , "liable to harm the homeland" , "Betraying one's country" , "disloyal" .)