Opinion | Trump Sends India-US Ties Back To The Drawing Board

The architects of the future structures and vision for India-US relations, building on the foundation laid since 2000, will now, of necessity, have to go back to the drawing board. President Donald Trump's July 30 announcement of 25% tariffs on Indian imports into the US, and the accompanying language, has already resurrected difficult memories of US coercion, and its periodic lack of empathy for the compulsions of a large, diverse and complex developing country.

Crunching The Numbers

Trump claimed that India has done relatively little business with the US. But the US, at $200 billion, is India's largest trading partner, and India is the twelfth-largest for the US. The Foreign Direct Investment (FD) in India from the US, at $60 billion, is the largest from any country. Indian companies, in turn, have invested more than $40 billion in the US and have a presence across all 50 American States. Supplies from India account for 40% of pharmaceutical generics imports into the US, helping moderate the already extremely high healthcare costs there.

As many as 60% of the nearly 1,800 Global Capability Centres in India are of American companies, supporting their global operations, and supporting their efforts to maintain their global lead in innovation and cutting-edge technologies. Indian students, at 300,000, are the largest group of foreign students there, injecting around $10 billion into the US education system. Indian origin tech workers, entrepreneurs and CEOs are making recognised contributions to US tech leadership. Clearly, the US President has not taken a holistic view of the existing and potential economic and technological partnership and has been influenced by the political capital he sought to drive from domestic constituencies in agriculture and dairy, and from his all-round strongman image for his MAGA base.

Flawed Arguments On Russia

He also criticised India for having “always bought a vast majority of their military equipment from Russia” and for being today “Russia's largest buyer of ENERGY, along with China”. From the Indian perspective, both these arguments are flawed. Even the US Secretary of State in the Biden Administration, Antony Blinken, had said in April 2022 that “India's relationship with Russia was developed over decades at a time when the United States was not able to be a partner to India”. Available data also indicates that, for its own reasons, India has now been diversifying its military purchases and increasing the share of the US, France and Israel.

Similarly, large-scale energy purchases from Russia since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in February 2022, and Western sanctions on Russia, are a result of spot market conditions; India has to meet the growing energy needs of its still low per capita energy consumption economy.

The 'Long Game'

The strength of the edifice of the US-India relationship will now inevitably be closely examined at both ends. For decades now, the US has been striving to shed its perception in India as an unreliable partner. In June 2022, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had said that the US was playing a “long game” in the context of its relationship with India. Its stand in support of India's position during the Kargil conflict in 1999, its deployment of its unique international strength to get India-specific exemptions from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2008 to enable international civil nuclear cooperation for India, its consistent sharing of information, intelligence and other support in the context of Chinese infringements on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), including in Galwan in 2020, were all part of that effort. 

The sentiment was also reflected in the growing number and complexity of military exercises across services, authorising higher-level technology releases in defence supplies, and the start of potentially unprecedented partnerships in defence technologies, including the 80% technology transfer of GE F414 engines to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), and the launch of a pathbreaking partnership in critical and emerging technologies in 2023. Now, in one fell swoop, Trump has reignited questions about the US being a reliable partner for India's critical needs and at critical moments.

The Pakistan Factor

Another shibboleth that will merit closer scrutiny is the dynamic of the US-Pakistan relationship. It has waxed and waned depending on America's use of Pakistan as a formal military ally till 1979, as a base for mounting militant jihad against the Soviet Union till 1989, and as a transit for supplying its troops in Afghanistan from 2001 till 2021. There have also been periods of extreme anger in the US against Pakistan, as was seen while supporting the Taliban, which was killing US soldiers, and when Osama bin Laden was captured in Abbottabad in 2011 near a military academy. However, the US never really saw a need for convergence with India in its approach to Pakistan, which it continued to value for periodic counter-terrorism support and whose nuclear-equipped leadership and military it felt the need to remain engaged with. 

The US' partnership with India in the Indo-Pacific and the Quad was largely limited to the maritime domain and did not extend to India's concerns in the continental Northwest of India. Trump has now resurrected the US-Pakistan relationship from the dip of the Biden years, and is seeking natural resources, critical minerals and crypto business opportunities and profit for his business partners and supporters.

US Is More Than Trump

American architects of the relationship will need to focus more on the value to them of a strong and independent-minded India, and the support it will create for regional and global stability. The level of cooperation should be constructed keeping this basic aspect in mind. They would be setting things up for future hand-wringing if the expectation is that India would become a more pliable partner in the service of the US, with its leaders defining their own national or political interest. The Russia relationship is clearly one example of where India will define its own red line.

The US is much more than Trump and his amplifying surrounding structure. It is marked by diverse political, business, technology interests and viewpoints. The stakeholders in the India relationship have grown over time, reflected in the current dimensions of the multifarious partnerships. At a press briefing on August 1, the spokesman of the Indian External Affairs Ministry stated, “We have strong ties with the United States… this partnership has weathered several transitions and challenges. We remain focused on the substantive agenda… and are confident that the relationship will continue to move forward”.

Clearly, this is the time for India, in turn, to play the “long game” with the US, while preserving its national security and societal interests.

(The author is a former Indian ambassador to the US, France and Israel)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author