The US-India relationship, once built on trust and shared strategic interests, now faces a serious test. Although the partnership has experienced fluctuations, it has been traditionally characterized by friendship, collaboration and mutual respect. Today, that foundation appears to be eroding amid shifting priorities in Washington.
Recent US policy increasingly favors engagement with China and Pakistan, even as India, the cornerstone of the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy, faces punitive measures such as tariffs. This recalibration defies strategic logic, undermining a partnership painstakingly cultivated over decades, just as it nears its full potential.
Washington’s reluctance to impose substantive consequences on Beijing for its deepening “no-limits” partnership with Moscow casts doubt on the US’ professed commitment to a values-based foreign policy. Economic considerations might partly explain this accommodation, yet such pragmatism risks forfeiting crucial strategic advantages in the Indo-Pacific region.
US President Donald Trump’s justification of steep tariffs on India, framed as a response to its procurement of Russian oil, belies a far more complex reality. India’s enduring reliance on Russia for energy and defense materiel is less a matter of preference and more a consequence of constrained alternatives within the Western bloc.
Geopolitical imperatives have long limited India’s foreign policy outreach. Surrounded by adversaries and facing complex security threats, including cross-border terrorism, New Delhi must navigate a precarious landscape. Yet the US has conspicuously failed to assist India in diversifying its strategic dependencies away from Russia.
Is Washington seeking to diminish India’s defense capabilities, or to erode its strategic autonomy?
The Indian-Russian defense relationship, forged during a different geopolitical era, remains integral to India’s security architecture. Abandoning this partnership, without credible alternatives or assurances, would imperil India’s national security and complicate its diplomatic calculus.
The assumption that India would unconditionally align its foreign policy with Washington lacks empirical foundation. Trust, once compromised, is difficult to restore.
Attributing responsibility to India for resolving the conflict in Ukraine misapprehends geopolitical realities. China, not India, possesses the economic leverage and strategic capacity to influence Moscow’s calculus. A coherent US strategy aimed at isolating Russia must prioritize Beijing’s role, rather than disproportionately targeting New Delhi.
Expecting India to meet every demand by Washington concerning Moscow while ignoring its most pressing security concern, cross-border terrorism, reveals a lack of understanding.
Equally perplexing is Washington’s willingness to host Pakistan’s military leadership again, a move perceived in New Delhi as a betrayal of trust or, at best, a serious failure of diplomatic optics.
This episode, to some extent, justifies Indian policymakers’ skepticism about whether aligning too closely with US expectations is even feasible.
However, India’s posture is unlikely to involve confrontation; it is to adopt a measured, bureaucratic approach focused on crisis management. The US remains one of India’s most important strategic partners. While the relationship is likely to endure, it would not be the same. The familiar spirit of “a friend in need is a friend indeed” would be replaced by a more transactional dynamic. Nonetheless, the erosion of trust is palpable, and its reconstruction would be protracted.
A growing perception in India is that Washington lacks the resolve to counter China’s regional ambitions. This would shape India’s strategic planning, encouraging hedging over deep alignment, leading to a weakened Indo-Pacific security focus, a more confident China and the slow erosion of a partnership decades in the making.
In Beijing, the conviction is growing that China is untouchable, that it can always manage its relationship with the US, regardless of its actions.
The ultimate loser is Taiwan; if Washington alienates its Indo-Pacific partners, the coalition expected to defend Taiwan might no longer be willing or able to act.
Although much remains uncertain, it cannot be denied that this situation could have been avoided. A quiet, diplomatic approach could have preserved trust and goodwill. Instead, short-term political calculations have overridden long-term strategic thinking.
Alienating key allies and partners like India not only undermines trust, but also weakens the very coalitions the US would most need in the years ahead.
Sana Hashmi is a fellow at the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation. The views expressed here are personal.
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