New Delhi, India — When Donald Trump returned to the White Home in January, many Indian analysts celebrated, arguing that his bonhomie with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would protect the nation from the chaos that america president might unleash.
The 2 leaders had successfully campaigned for one another beforehand, attending joint rallies. They’ve repeatedly described one another as pals, and in February, Modi grew to become among the many first world leaders to go to Trump within the White Home.
However six months later, a sobering actuality has hit New Delhi, with Trump punishing it with a 25 % tariff on imports and near-daily threats to extend these levies additional due to India’s oil purchases from Russia, as he tries to drive Moscow into accepting a ceasefire in its struggle on Ukraine.
An India-US commerce deal stays elusive, and bilateral relations are on a slippery slope, in line with some consultants. “US-India relations are on the lowest level in many years,” Biswajit Dhar, a commerce economist who has labored on a number of Indian commerce offers, advised Al Jazeera. Dozens of different international locations, together with neighbours India has tense ties with, resembling Pakistan and Bangladesh, are going through decrease tariffs.
Addressing a public rally on Saturday, Modi took a defiant stance in opposition to Trump’s tariff assaults. “The world financial system goes via many apprehensions. There may be an environment of instability,” Modi mentioned.
“Now, no matter we purchase, there must be just one scale: we are going to purchase these issues which have been made by the sweat of an Indian,” he added.
Modi’s feedback come as Indian officers reportedly reject stopping the shopping for of Russian crude.
Trump has blamed India’s shopping for of Russian oil for serving to finance Moscow’s struggle on Ukraine. “They [Indians] don’t care how many individuals in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian Battle Machine,” Trump mentioned Monday. “Due to this, I will likely be considerably elevating the Tariff paid by India to the USA.”
So, how did we get right here? What are the rising factors of discord between India and the US? And will India surrender on Russian oil to save lots of its relationship with the US?
What are the friction factors in US-India relations?
Modi and Trump would possibly communicate extremely of one another, however there’s a rising variety of areas the place India and the US are at odds, starting from commerce agreements to strategic alignment.
No commerce deal
Commerce has lengthy been a sticking level in US-India relations, whilst strategic and defence ties have deepened. The US has constantly pushed for larger market entry, decrease tariffs and stronger protections, particularly for its tech, pharmaceutical and agricultural exports. India, then again, has resisted what it sees as disproportionate strain to open up its financial system in ways in which might hurt its home industries and small farmers.
But, earlier than Trump, the 2 international locations managed this financial relationship, regardless of its imbalance: India offered twice as a lot to the US because the US offered to India. The US needed entry to India’s rising markets, and India wanted to export to the US, so preserving ties afloat was essential to each.
After Trump first introduced tariffs on nearly all buying and selling companions on April 1, Indian and US officers started talks to sew collectively a commerce deal. However disagreements over e-commerce regulation, digital information flows and value controls on medical units have reportedly stalled progress.
Indian officers have been frantically chasing the August 1 deadline set by Trump to keep away from tariffs. However regardless of occasional breakthroughs, like India chopping tariffs on some US items, the 2 international locations haven’t but concluded a full bilateral commerce deal.
With negotiations nonetheless beneath manner, New Delhi now faces 25 % tariffs on its exports to the US, and Trump has threatened unspecified further penalties tied to India’s vitality and arms purchases from Russia.
“It is a strain tactic by Trump,” mentioned Anil Trigunayat, a former Indian diplomat who has served as India’s commerce commissioner in New York. “In contrast to others, India has not given in to what the People need as a result of we have now to guard our MSMEs and agriculture,” he added, utilizing the acronym for micro, small, and medium enterprises.
Nearly half of India’s inhabitants is dependent upon agriculture for its livelihood, making the problem politically delicate for each Indian authorities.
“Everyone is enjoying hardball on either side, and it’s essential to arrive at a mutually helpful resolution,” he advised Al Jazeera.
India’s shut ties with Russia
As Trump’s frustrations with Russia mount over stalled peace talks to finish the struggle in Ukraine, the US president has been on the lookout for extra methods to nook Moscow. India’s longstanding relationship with Russia has emerged as a key goal for Washington.
Whereas the US views India as a key associate in countering China’s rise within the Asia Pacific, it has grown more and more uneasy with New Delhi’s continued defence and vitality ties with Moscow, analysts say.
At a time when the West has shunned Russian President Vladimir Putin, who additionally faces an arrest warrant from the Worldwide Felony Court docket associated to the struggle in Ukraine, Modi visited Russia twice final yr. In July 2024, Putin conferred upon Modi the Order of St Andrew the Apostle the First‑Known as, Russia’s highest civilian honour.
Russia stays certainly one of India’s largest arms suppliers, and their cooperation spans vital applied sciences, together with missile techniques and nuclear reactors. And after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, India ramped up imports of discounted Russian crude oil.
Kashmir ceasefire
After an assault by gunmen in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam resort city on April 22, during which 26 civilians have been killed, India and Pakistan engaged of their most expansive army battle in many years.
Because the South Asian nuclear-armed rivals traded missile and drone assaults in Could, Trump mentioned he intervened and advised each international locations to conform to a ceasefire, or there could be no commerce.
“Fellas, come on. Let’s make a deal. Let’s do some buying and selling. Let’s not commerce nuclear missiles. Let’s commerce the issues that you simply make so fantastically,” Trump mentioned just a few days later in Riyadh.
“I used commerce to a big extent to do [the ceasefire]. And all of it stopped,” he added.
In India, which has lengthy held the place that each one disputes with Pakistan have to be settled bilaterally, with no third-party mediation, Trump’s declare that he engineered the Could 10 ceasefire that stopped the preventing has sparked criticism of Modi from the opposition.
Modi’s authorities has insisted that the truce was caused bilaterally, that Modi didn’t communicate to Trump throughout the battle, and that – opposite to the US president’s claims – commerce was by no means mentioned as a think about negotiating the ceasefire. However Trump has doubled down on his declare, mentioning greater than 30 instances that he brokered peace.
Rising US-Pakistan ties
After the ceasefire between India and Pakistan in Could, Trump hosted Pakistan’s military chief, Asim Munir, on the White Home. By no means earlier than had a US president hosted a Pakistani army boss who was not additionally the pinnacle of state.
That assembly underscored a rising heat between Washington and Islamabad after years of tense ties, with US army officers crediting Pakistan with serving to them seize needed “terrorists”.
The federal government of Pakistan additionally formally endorsed Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for “recognition of his decisive diplomatic intervention and pivotal management throughout the current India-Pakistan disaster”.
A day after assembly Munir, Trump known as Modi a “improbable man”, however added that Munir was “extraordinarily influential” in bringing in regards to the ceasefire.
“I really like Pakistan,” Trump mentioned, and repeated: “I ended the struggle between Pakistan and India.”
As Trump focused India in his newest tariff assault, he took to his Fact Social platform to disclose that he had concluded a take care of Pakistan, during which they’d work collectively on growing oil reserves. “Who is aware of, perhaps they’ll be promoting Oil to India some day!” he wrote.
Later, the US imposed a 19 % tariff on imports from Pakistan, which Islamabad hailed as “balanced and forward-looking”.
Massive Tech hiring, deportation
Days earlier than Modi visited Trump in February, visuals emerged of Indian residents within the US, shackled in chains, parading in the direction of a US army plane, prompting anger in India over the therapy of its nationals.
Returnees, immigrants with out paperwork to remain within the US, described being chained all through the flight to India, unable to maneuver for almost 40 hours. Like commerce, the problem of deportation has been on the centre of Trump’s re-election marketing campaign.
And it isn’t simply undocumented migrants.
After assuming the presidency, Trump’s administration has additionally come beneath strain from the president’s Make America Nice Once more (MAGA) base to crack down on H1B work visas, almost 72 % of which go to Indians.
Final month, talking at a synthetic intelligence summit in Washington, DC, Trump singled out tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple for hiring staff from India. Trump declared, “The times of hiring staff in India are over”, and urged corporations to prioritise jobs for People and disconnect from outsourcing fashions tied to India and China.
What’s the newest spark in US-India tensions?
Russia’s struggle on Ukraine has emerged as the newest set off, as Trump tried to push Putin into accepting a ceasefire.
On Monday, Trump wrote on his Fact Social platform that “India will not be solely shopping for huge quantities of Russian Oil, they’re then, for a lot of the Oil bought, promoting it on the Open Marketplace for large income”.
Earlier, Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of workers on the White Home and one of many US president’s most influential aides, linked India’s shopping for of Russian crude to financing Moscow’s struggle in Ukraine.
“What [Trump] mentioned very clearly is that it isn’t acceptable for India to proceed financing this struggle by buying the oil from Russia,” mentioned Miller.
“Folks will likely be shocked to study that India is principally tied with China in buying Russian oil. That’s an astonishing truth,” Miller advised Fox Information’s Sunday Morning Futures.
India imports almost 2 million barrels of crude oil per day from Russia, making it the second-largest purchaser of Russian oil after China. Russia additionally tops the record of India’s arms suppliers.
How has India reacted to Trump?
On Monday, India’s Ministry of Exterior Affairs responded sharply, calling the US’s concentrating on of New Delhi over the shopping for of Russian oil “unjustified and unreasonable”.
It accused the West of double requirements, stating how Europe traded extra with Russia in 2024 than India did, and the way the US continues to import chemical substances and fertilisers from Russia.
It additionally mentioned that the US has “actively inspired” it to purchase Russian oil, in order that world crude costs would keep beneath management whereas the West might scale back its dependence on Russian vitality.
“India will take all essential measures to safeguard its nationwide pursuits and financial safety,” the assertion concluded.
Will India cease shopping for Russian oil to please Trump?
That may be very unlikely, consultants say.
India has traditionally — since independence from Britain in 1947 — cherished its strategic autonomy, together with throughout the Chilly Battle, when it stayed non-aligned. For the reason that finish of the Chilly Battle, it has deepened strategic and army ties with the US whereas sustaining its conventional friendship with Russia.
“Trump is making an attempt to wean India off its strategic autonomy coverage by going after its ties with Russia and membership in BRICS,” Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute on the Wilson Heart in Washington, DC, advised Al Jazeera, referring to the Trump’s threats of upper tariffs in opposition to members of the bloc that features a number of main nations of the International South.
“However Delhi will not be about to jettison this coverage within the face of Trump’s strain. Quite the opposite, I count on it to double down.”
Late on Tuesday, India’s Nationwide Safety Adviser Ajit Doval landed in Moscow. Minister of Exterior Affairs S Jaishankar is anticipated to go to Russia later this month. And New Delhi has confirmed that Putin will likely be visiting India later this yr, for the primary time for the reason that 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
In current weeks, India has additionally indicated that it’s open to reviving a trilateral grouping together with Russia and China, the West’s two large rivals.
“Can the US or Europe surrender their strategic autonomy?” requested Jayati Ghosh, economics professor on the College of Massachusetts Amherst. “India has extra individuals than each of them put collectively. It’s absurd to even assume that India may give up that,” she advised Al Jazeera.
What does this imply for way forward for US-India relationship?
Echoing Dhar, the economist, Kugelman mentioned that US-India relations have “sunk to their lowest stage over the past twenty years of strategic partnership”, which started taking form within the early years of the twenty first century.
Non-alignment with international governments “stays a vital part of India’s international coverage”, mentioned Kugelman, including that he expects that to proceed.
And since “India maintained this stability after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Trump is penalising [New Delhi] for making an attempt to keep up the stability [between US and Russia],” he mentioned. “[That’s] one thing that the Biden administration by no means did,” he added, referring to the earlier administration of US President Joe Biden.
Trigunayat, the previous diplomat, mentioned that “strategic autonomy for India is extra essential now than ever. India, with the world’s largest inhabitants, has its personal strategy to strategic autonomy that’s within the DNA of Indian international coverage.”
Within the longer run, Kugelman mentioned that New Delhi will hope that Trump’s ire will finally blow over – a possible case if Russia agrees to cease preventing in Ukraine.
“In that sense, India might look to redouble efforts to press Putin to finish the struggle,” mentioned Kugelman, “as a result of for now, Trump seems to be taking out his frustration with Putin on India”.
