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 the USA president may unleash.
The 2 leaders had successfully campaigned for one another beforehand, attending joint rallies. They’ve repeatedly described one another as associates, and in February, Modi turned 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 p.c 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 warfare on Ukraine.
An India-US commerce deal stays elusive, and bilateral relations are on a slippery slope, based on 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, informed Al Jazeera. Dozens of different international locations, together with neighbours India has tense ties with, corresponding to 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 economic system goes by many apprehensions. There’s an environment of instability,” Modi mentioned.
“Now, no matter we purchase, there must be just one scale: we’ll 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 warfare 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 shall 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 quit on Russian oil to avoid wasting its relationship with the US?
What are the friction factors in US-India relations?
Modi and Trump would possibly converse 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, at the same time as strategic and defence ties have deepened. The US has persistently pushed for higher market entry, decrease tariffs and stronger protections, particularly for its tech, pharmaceutical and agricultural exports. India, alternatively, has resisted what it sees as disproportionate strain to open up its economic 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 bought twice as a lot to the US because the US bought to India. The US needed entry to India’s rising markets, and India wanted to export to the US, so protecting ties afloat was vital to each.
After Trump first introduced tariffs on virtually 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 knowledge 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 below manner, New Delhi now faces 25 p.c tariffs on its exports to the US, and Trump has threatened unspecified extra penalties tied to India’s power 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 Individuals 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 depends upon agriculture for its livelihood, making the problem politically delicate for each Indian authorities.
“All people is enjoying hardball on each side, and it’s essential to arrive at a mutually helpful answer,” he informed Al Jazeera.
India’s shut ties with Russia
As Trump’s frustrations with Russia mount over stalled peace talks to finish the warfare in Ukraine, the US president has been searching 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 accomplice in countering China’s rise within the Asia Pacific, it has grown more and more uneasy with New Delhi’s continued defence and power 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 Legal Court docket associated to the warfare in Ukraine, Modi visited Russia twice final yr. In July 2024, Putin conferred upon Modi the Order of St Andrew the Apostle the First‑Referred to as, Russia’s highest civilian honour.
Russia stays considered one of India’s largest arms suppliers, and their cooperation spans essential applied sciences, together with missile programs 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, through which 26 civilians have been killed, India and Pakistan engaged of their most expansive navy battle in many years.
Because the South Asian nuclear-armed rivals traded missile and drone assaults in Could, Trump mentioned he intervened and informed each international locations to comply with 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 superbly,” Trump mentioned a number of 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 should be settled bilaterally, with no third-party mediation, Trump’s declare that he engineered the Could 10 ceasefire that stopped the combating has sparked criticism of Modi from the opposition.
Modi’s authorities has insisted that the truce was led to bilaterally, that Modi didn’t converse to Trump through 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 navy boss who was not additionally the top of state.
That assembly underscored a rising heat between Washington and Islamabad after years of tense ties, with US navy 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 through the latest India-Pakistan disaster”.
A day after assembly Munir, Trump referred to as Modi a “implausible man”, however added that Munir was “extraordinarily influential” in bringing concerning the ceasefire.
“I really like Pakistan,” Trump mentioned, and repeated: “I ended the warfare 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 cope with Pakistan, through which they might work collectively on creating oil reserves. “Who is aware of, perhaps they’ll be promoting Oil to India some day!” he wrote.
Later, the US imposed a 19 p.c tariff on imports from Pakistan, which Islamabad hailed as “balanced and forward-looking”.
Huge 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 navy 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 below strain from the president’s Make America Nice Once more (MAGA) base to crack down on H1B work visas, almost 72 p.c 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 employees from India. Trump declared, “The times of hiring employees in India are over”, and urged firms to prioritise jobs for Individuals and disconnect from outsourcing fashions tied to India and China.
What’s the newest spark in US-India tensions?
Russia’s warfare 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 isn’t solely shopping for large quantities of Russian Oil, they’re then, for a lot of the Oil bought, promoting it on the Open Marketplace for large earnings”.
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 warfare in Ukraine.
“What [Trump] mentioned very clearly is that it isn’t acceptable for India to proceed financing this warfare by buying the oil from Russia,” mentioned Miller.
“Folks shall be shocked to study that India is principally tied with China in buying Russian oil. That’s an astonishing reality,” Miller informed 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 checklist 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 focusing 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 compounds and fertilisers from Russia.
It additionally mentioned that the US has “actively inspired” it to purchase Russian oil, in order that international crude costs would keep below management whereas the West may cut back its dependence on Russian power.
“India will take all vital 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 through the Chilly Battle, when it stayed non-aligned. For the reason that finish of the Chilly Battle, it has deepened strategic and navy 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 Middle in Washington, DC, informed 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 World South.
“However Delhi isn’t about to jettison this coverage within the face of Trump’s strain. Quite the opposite, I anticipate 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 shall be visiting India later this yr, for the primary time for the reason that 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
In latest 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 quit 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 suppose that India may give up that,” she informed 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 last 20 years of strategic partnership”, which started taking form within the early years of the twenty first century.
Non-alignment with international governments “stays a essential element 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 vital 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 ultimately blow over – a probable case if Russia agrees to cease combating in Ukraine.
“In that sense, India might look to redouble efforts to press Putin to finish the warfare,” mentioned Kugelman, “as a result of for now, Trump seems to be taking out his frustration with Putin on India”.
