India can’t wait for a post-Trump America
Unless corrective measures are taken soon and parties on both sides attempt to steady the relationship, Trump will leave the relationship severely damaged
Historically speaking, it is true that India and the US have never been closer as they have been over the last decade. But after a week-long visit to Washington, I am not so sure. I came away with a strong sense that there are dramatically divergent views in New Delhi and DC on the state of the bilateral relationship, and that the strategic partnership is perhaps more fragile than ever.
While the sentiment in New Delhi is that Washington under President Trump has severely damaged the India-US strategic partnership for no credible or justifiable reason, the feeling in DC is that India has not done enough to save the relationship and has been slow to react to fast-changing developments in the US. While New Delhi continues to view the relationship through what India can offer the US in terms of market, geopolitical convergence, Indo-Pacific, and common concerns about China, Trump’s DC no longer sees India through the China prism and is more directly questioning what is it that India can give the US beyond the symbolism and “promises of future”. For the India-US relations to get back on track, there must be more honest conversation between the two sides on what they mean to each other. But whether Trump has the patience for such elevated conversation is doubtful. Realism, rather than wishful thinking, and expectation management are what we need more than ever.
India watchers in DC seem to argue that New Delhi has not been creative and agile in its outreach to Trump, and that we have missed the bus on several occasions to get back into his good books. Trump doesn’t care for substance as he does for symbolism and optics, and that is something India should have kept in mind while designing a policy to engage Trump. Some of that creative diplomacy involves, I suspect, bending the knee before Trump, which is a non-starter as far as India is concerned. And perhaps rightly so.
There are two clear examples before India: America’s military allies and partners, who cowed down to Trump (which was the only choice they had), and China, which pushed back against Trump’s tariffs using its leverage over rare earths crucial to the US. India is not a weak American ally dependent on the US for its security — and so it finds no reason to give into unjustified American pressure. But it is also not as powerful as China to push back Trump’s bullying. Put differently, it’s neither too weak to be humble nor is it strong enough to have credible leverage against American bullying.
The big question on everyone’s mind is whether the Trump administration will be able to push the European Union (EU) to impose sanctions on India for buying Russian energy. Trump’s pressure to do so would be problematic for the EU at several levels. For one, the EU has been a bigger importer of Russian gas than India, which will deny Brussels any solid foundation to base its sanctions against India. Second, imposing sanctions on India could derail the growing proximity and the free trade agreement talks between the EU and India, creating a major setback in the relationship. Third, technically, New Delhi has not violated any sanctions by buying Russian energy as there are no sanctions in place against buying Russian energy. There is a price cap that the EU has imposed on the purchase of Russian energy, which India has abided by. So there is not even a legal basis to impose sanctions on India.
There appears to be some consensus on how Indo-Pacific and even Quad might take a beating under Trump. If Trump doesn’t see the US locked in a great-power competition with China, Indo-Pacific loses its value ipso facto. Trump’s idea of great-power competition is to make friends with great powers, not to compete with them which changes the geopolitical calculation of countries such as India.
Analysis in DC also pointed out the importance of noting the fact that so far, Trump has restrained from personally attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi — if anything he has only reiterated the friendship between himself and the latter, which is a good sign. This is something that could be built on, the argument goes. On its part, New Delhi too has been cautious in responding to the rather loose statements by Trump and his close associates such as Peter Navarro. There is an overwhelming feeling that New Delhi must calm its nerves in the face of provocations from DC, however unjustified they may be, since this is not only about India. But more importantly, for all you know, this is a typical Trump strategy, which is to escalate and then, de-escalate. So hold your nerve because Trump has a short attention span and, in the meantime, offer him something positive to focus on (maybe some huge investment by Indian business houses in America).
As for the newly nominated US ambassador to India, there appeared to be two divergent views: One view is that since Sergio Gor is part of Trump’s inner circle, he might be in a position to positively influence Trump towards India (with a little charm offensive from New Delhi). There is also the opposite view: Being as young as he is and knowing his boss as well as he does, he might not want to say anything that Trump might not want to hear. However, Gor seems to have started out well by claiming that a trade deal is imminent and the bilateral strategic ties are intact.
The overwhelming sentiment is that India-US relations are strong enough to outlive Trump’s tantrums. However, unless corrective measures are taken soon and parties concerned on both sides attempt to steady the relationship, he will leave the relationship severely damaged. Waiting for Trump to leave office is not a viable strategy for New Delhi. It needs to deal with the US as shaped by Trump, not the US that it is used to.
Happymon Jacob is the founder and director of the Council for Strategic and Defense Research and the editor of INDIA’S WORLD magazine. The views expressed are personal
