WASHINGTON — Images this week of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping seemed to confirm what many experts have already concluded – the U.S. has stumbled in its effort to draw India into its diplomatic orbit.
Successive U.S. presidential administrations have sought to cultivate the historically non-aligned India as a strategic counterweight to China and Russia.
But as the images of Modi in Tianjin underlined, U.S. President Donald Trump appears for now to have undercut that goal with a series of actions. These have included piling 50% tariffs on Indian goods and publicly browbeating New Delhi over what his administration sees as its opportunistic purchases of cheap Russian oil.
The souring of the India relationship comes even as U.S. adversaries China, Russia and North Korea have tightened their ties, despite Trump’s desire to reset relations with each of them. On Wednesday, the leaders of the three countries appeared together in public for the first time at an event to mark the end of World War Two.
And Modi, in a signal to Trump, is showing a willingness to boost rather than reduce ties with Moscow – and to look past his suspicions of Beijing.
“I fear we are locked into a long downward spiral because neither leader is willing to pursue the personal outreach necessary to repair the relationship,” said Ashley Tellis, who served in the White House of Republican President George W. Bush and is now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank.
“The problem now is Trump’s deepening grievances against India,” Tellis said. “He may change his mind down the road, but presently the imperative of securing a trade deal with China trumps all other geopolitical considerations.”
Indian officials have been rankled by having their trade proposals rejected and their arch-rival Pakistan honored by Trump, slights compounded by the U.S. president claiming credit for resolving decades-long tensions between the South Asian neighbors, which India regards as a bilateral affair.
Tanvi Madan, an India specialist at the Brookings Institution, said U.S. criticism of Modi’s meetings with Xi and Putin struck Indians as odd just weeks after Trump rolled out the red carpet for the Russian leader and given the U.S. president’s own plans to meet with Xi.
“That criticism and pressure on India isn’t going to sway India from seeking strategic autonomy; it is going to reinforce that instinct,” she said.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Trump’s foreign policy record “is unparalleled because of his uncanny ability to look anyone in the eye and deliver better deals for the American people,” including brokering an India-Pakistan ceasefire.
“President Trump and Prime Minister Modi have a respectful relationship, and teams from both the United States and India remain in close communication on the full range of diplomatic, defense and commercial priorities in our strategic partnership,” she said.
India’s foreign ministry did not respond when asked for comment.
An Indian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Trump administration’s narrative on India, including recent comments by Trump’s advisers, was unjustified but Delhi continues to engage with it. The official said the thaw with China has been happening since October and is not targeted at the U.S.
China versus India
Modi’s improving relations with Xi are especially striking given long-standing Sino-Indian tensions and sometimes outright hostility, including a military clash on their disputed border in 2020. His trip to China was his first in seven years.
Trump’s recent attacks have thrown assumptions of a mutually beneficial U.S. partnership with India into the air, with his “America First” approach often hitting Washington’s major partners and allies harder than its traditional geopolitical adversaries.
“We get along with India very well, but India, you have to understand, for many years it was a one-sided relationship,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday, reprising a theme he has raised multiple times in recent weeks.
China, India and Russia are all original members of the BRICS, a group Trump has dubbed “anti-American.” Another BRICS nation, Brazil, which like India has been an important U.S. partner, has also been targeted by Trump, facing stiff tariffs and accusations that it is pursuing a “witch hunt” against his far-right ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro.
