How Trump lost India – and why America must win it back | India Sentinels

Illustration for representation. (© India Sentinels 2025–26)

The second Donald Trump presidency has precipitated one of the most dramatic reversals in US-India relations in recent memory. What began as a “defining partnership of the 21st century” has rapidly deteriorated into a strategic standoff marked by punitive tariffs, public diplomatic humiliation, and New Delhi’s consequent pivot toward Moscow and Beijing.

This deterioration represents not merely a bilateral diplomatic crisis but a fundamental challenge to America’s Indo-Pacific strategy and global power projection. However, within this crisis lies an opportunity for both nations to forge a more mature, equitable partnership that serves their mutual interests while strengthening the broader global order.

The Great Unravelling

The transformation of US-India relations from strategic partnership to strategic discord represents one of the most consequential foreign-policy reversals of the modern era. Under successive US administrations from Bill Clinton through Joe Biden, the relationship had achieved unprecedented depth across defence, technology, trade, and strategic coordination. The bipartisan consensus in Washington viewed India as America’s most important strategic partner in containing China’s rise and maintaining the rules-based international order.

This carefully constructed partnership began unravelling with Trump’s buccaneer-style policy reversals in his second term. The immediate trigger was India’s refusal to credit Trump with resolving the May 2025 India-Pakistan conflict, which severely wounded the president’s ego and pride.

The deterioration reflects a deeper problem: prominent voices in Washington, including the president himself, have demonstrated a profound misunderstanding of contemporary India’s strategic outlook and capabilities. India in the 21st century is not the developing nation of decades past but a confident, rising power with its own legitimate aspirations and red lines. The failure to grasp this fundamental transformation has led to policy missteps that treat India as a junior partner rather than an equal stakeholder in global governance.

This perceived slight, combined with India’s continued purchases of Russian oil despite western sanctions, prompted Trump to impose devastating 50 per cent tariffs on Indian goods – among the highest levied on any nation. Paradoxically, it was on the US’s behest India started buying more Russian oil at a capped price to keep global energy prices stable, and Europe has imported most of that oil refined in India at an attractive price.

The psychological dimension of this deterioration cannot be understated. Trump’s public characterization of US-India relations as a “totally one-sided disaster” and his dismissive remarks about India’s economy being “dead” represented an unprecedented assault on India’s national dignity. For a nation that has always been acutely sensitive to matters of sovereignty and respect, such rhetoric was particularly damaging.

The Indian public and political establishment united in outrage, viewing Trump’s behaviour as confirmation of long-held suspicions about America’s unreliability as a partner. The relationship that took decades to build was dismantled in a matter of weeks, which highlighted the fragility of partnerships built primarily on elite-level personal relationships rather than deep institutional foundations.

India’s Strategic Pivot

India’s participation in the this month’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin marked a watershed moment in contemporary geopolitics. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to attend – his first visit to China in seven years – sent unmistakable signals about India’s strategic recalibration.

The iconic images of Modi holding hands with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin while walking together represented a powerful visual metaphor for shifting global alignments. The summit demonstrated India’s sophisticated strategic autonomy in action. While maintaining its core strategic interests, India signalled its willingness to explore alternative partnerships when faced with American pressure.

The revival of direct flights between India and China (which is expected soon), renewed border trade, and discussions of potential Chinese investment in India’s electric vehicle sector indicated a pragmatic thaw in bilateral relations despite persistent strategic differences. India’s engagement with the SCO and BRICS platforms reflects a broader global south strategy of multi-alignment rather than alignment with any single power bloc.

As the external affairs minister, S Jaishankar, has articulated, this approach allows India to “engage America, manage China, cultivate Europe, reassure Russia” while maintaining strategic flexibility. The economic dimensions of this pivot are equally significant. Russia’s share of Indian energy imports has surged from 3 per cent in 2021 to 42 per cent in 2025, making New Delhi one of Moscow’s most important energy customers.

Strategic, Economic, Security Implications

The deterioration of US-India relations represents a strategic catastrophe for American interests across multiple dimensions. The US’s former UN ambassador Nikki Haley’s warning that losing India would constitute a “strategic disaster” for Washington reflects the consensus among foreign-policy experts about India’s irreplaceable role in American strategy.

The immediate economic costs are substantial. India’s $87 billion in exports to the United States in 2024 represented approximately 20 per cent of its total exports, making America India’s largest trading partner. The 50 per cent tariffs risk decimating this trade relationship while pushing India toward alternative markets. More critically, the trade war undermines America’s supply-chain diversification efforts, potentially forcing American companies to maintain greater dependence on Chinese supply chains.

The defence and security implications are even more profound. The US-India defence partnership, built over two decades, has produced significant interoperability and technological cooperation. India’s drift toward Russia and China threatens to undermine these carefully constructed security architectures. The potential revival of the Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral format would create a powerful counterweight to American influence in Asia.

The current trajectory raises fundamental questions about America’s strategic coherence in the 21st century. The uncertainty surrounding key multilateral frameworks – from the India-Israel-UAE-US partnership (I2U2) to the ambitious India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC), and even the future of AUKUS – suggests a lack of strategic planning in Washington.

The Quad, once hailed as the cornerstone of Indo-Pacific strategy, now faces an uncertain future without robust US-India cooperation. The administration appears to be oscillating between coalition-building and alliance-breaking, raising doubts about whether the United States has a coherent vision for leading global governance structures.

Perhaps most significantly, America’s broader Indo-Pacific strategy depends fundamentally on Indian partnership. Without India, the Quad becomes merely a forum for three middle powers, and the entire strategic architecture loses its credibility as a counterweight to Chinese influence. Xi Jinping’s declaration that it is “time for the dragon and elephant to dance together” reflects Beijing’s awareness of the opportunity presented by US-India tensions.

This crisis exposes a deeper challenge that the Trump administration seems reluctant to acknowledge: even the world’s dominant power must recognize that authority and supremacy in global governance have temporal limits. Trump’s approach suggests a basic misunderstanding of this reality – that sustainable leadership in the modern era requires graceful adaptation to changing power dynamics rather than attempting to preserve hierarchical arrangements through coercion and ultimatums.

India’s role as a leading voice of the global south makes its alienation from America particularly damaging. India’s successful hosting of the G20 summit and its leadership in forums like BRICS have established it as a credible alternative to western leadership. When India criticizes American policies or aligns with China and Russia on global issues, it provides legitimacy to alternative perspectives on international order.

Charting a Path Forward

Despite the severity of current tensions, the US-India relationship retains fundamental strengths that provide a foundation for repair and renewal. Both nations share core interests in maintaining a stable, prosperous, and democratic world order.

Immediate Diplomatic Repairs: The first priority must be halting the downward spiral through high-level diplomatic engagement. Trump’s acknowledgment that India and the United States have a “special relationship” provides an opening for broader diplomatic repair. However, sustained repair requires moving beyond personal diplomacy to institutionalized engagement. The United States should strengthen its engagement with India’s Parliament, state governments, civil society organizations, and business community.

Reframing Economic Partnership: The economic dimension requires fundamental reframing from zero-sum competition to positive-sum cooperation. The US-India COMPACT initiative, launched in February 2025, provides a promising framework for this cooperation. Trade policy should shift from punitive tariffs to incentivized cooperation, offering preferential access to American markets for Indian goods produced through joint ventures with American companies.

Respecting Strategic Autonomy: Perhaps most importantly, the United States must learn to respect and work with India’s strategic autonomy rather than viewing it as an obstacle to partnership. This requires accepting that India will maintain relationships with Russia and China even while deepening ties with the United States. Rather than demanding exclusive loyalty, America should focus on ensuring that its relationship with India is competitive with alternatives and provides unique value.

Technology & Innovation Partnership: The technology dimension offers perhaps the greatest opportunity for renewed cooperation. Joint initiatives in critical and emerging technologies can create mutual dependencies while advancing both countries’ competitive positions vis-à-vis China. The Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) should be expanded and accelerated to demonstrate tangible benefits from US-India cooperation.

Climate and Energy Cooperation: Climate change and energy transition represent another area where US-India cooperation can produce mutual benefits. Rather than criticizing India’s continued use of Russian energy, the United States should focus on providing competitive alternatives that meet India’s energy security needs while reducing carbon emissions.

Why Partnership Benefits All

The repair of US-India relations is not merely a bilateral issue but a global imperative. America’s allies and partners have consistently supported closer US-India relations as a means of strengthening the democratic world’s strategic position. The deterioration complicates these allies’ own strategic planning and reduces the effectiveness of multilateral partnerships, like the Quad.

The global south benefits immensely when its leading voice – India – maintains constructive relations with the world’s dominant power. A deteriorating US-India relationship forces other global south countries to choose sides more explicitly, reducing their own strategic flexibility and potentially accelerating the fragmentation of the international system into competing blocs.

Paradoxically, even China and Russia benefit from stable US-India relations, despite their current tactical advantages from US-India tensions. A multipolar world order that includes constructive US-India relations is more stable and predictable than one characterized by constant “great power” competition and the risk of conflict.

The current crisis points to the need for a fundamentally new approach to international partnership in the 21st century. India’s practice of strategic autonomy, far from being an obstacle to partnership, can serve as a model for how middle powers can contribute to global stability while advancing their own interests.

Multi-alignment allows countries to maintain relationships across geopolitical divides, serving as bridges for communication and cooperation even during periods of great power tension. India’s multi-alignment approach has enabled it to maintain dialogue with both the United States and China even during periods of border tensions, and to engage with both western and non-western institutional frameworks.

Seizing the Moment

The current crisis in US-India relations, while serious, represents an opportunity for both countries to develop a more mature and sustainable partnership based on mutual respect, shared interests, and recognition of each other’s legitimate aspirations.

For the United States, learning to work with India’s strategic autonomy rather than against it can provide a template for engaging other rising powers and maintaining American influence in an evolving international system. The alternative – attempting to force exclusive loyalty through pressure and sanctions – has proven counterproductive and risks accelerating the very outcomes America seeks to prevent.

For India, the crisis has demonstrated both the benefits and the limitations of strategic autonomy. The challenge is to develop institutional mechanisms that can weather political changes and personal conflicts. The global community has a stake in the success of US-India relations because the partnership between the world’s oldest and largest democracies can serve as a model for how established and emerging powers can work together to address common challenges.

In an era of growing authoritarianism and great power competition, the world cannot afford to see its leading democracies divided against each other. The path forward requires leadership on both sides to move beyond immediate political considerations and focus on long-term strategic interests. It requires recognition that partnership in the 21st century must be based on equality and mutual benefit rather than hierarchy and dependence.

The choice facing policymakers in Washington and New Delhi is clear: they can allow current tensions to escalate into a permanent estrangement that benefits only America’s and India’s adversaries, or they can use this crisis as an opportunity to build a stronger, more resilient partnership that serves as a foundation for global stability and prosperity in the decades to come.

The stakes could not be higher, and the time for action is now.

^Disclaimer:^{The views expressed in the article are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect the views of India Sentinels.}

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