US President Donald Trump considers himself the 'President of Peace'. His administration has claimed to play a role in mediating the ceasefire between India and Pakistan, Thailand and Cambodia, as well as Israel and Iran, and is currently attempting to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine.
In varying degrees, there is evidence of stakeholders within the administration being parties to at least conversations around cessation of hostilities in said conflicts. However, Trump's need to be publicly recognised for bringing peace, has not played well with the actors involved. And this is not just true for India, where New Delhi held off from crediting him for halting Operation Sindoor. Thai officials have also argued that they rejected mediation from any third party, whether it be the US or China. Interestingly, both Pakistan and Cambodia played the opposite game, and went public with their appreciation of Trump's efforts in mediation.
The Tariff Train
The differences in policy opinions have, for obvious reasons involving pompous interests, led Trump to treat either party to such conflicts differently. His quest for peace has barely even translated to a peaceful American foreign policy. Notable is the example of his use of economic tools to compel and coerce states like India and China to cede to American 'interests'.
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In China's case, this translated into an escalatory ladder of tariffs imposed on each other by Beijing and Washington. In the first few months of 2025, it seemed that the tariff tit-for-tat had no end, and that each time Beijing retaliated, Trump would interpret it as a sign of disrespect and raise the stakes. As things stand today, Chinese goods being exported to the US face an almost 55% tariff, and retaliatory tariffs on American products are at around 32%. Both sides are up against an August 12 deadline to negotiate their way out of the future messes their consumers and producers are likely to face.
No More The 'Greatest Thief'?
Yet, curiously, Trump's stance on China, the US's primary rival in all terms - economic, military, or ideological - now seems to be oriented towards achieving a deal rather than punishing it for undertaking, as he himself once said, one of the "greatest thefts in the history of the world". Going by his own recent words, Trump believes that his initial tariff of 145% was "too high" and that there is the possibility of "a good deal" with China. Behind the scenes, too, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent led a delegation to discuss terms with Vice Premier He Lifeng of China, and his team, thrice this year - on May 11 (Stockholm), June 8-13 (London), and most recently, on July 28 and 29 (again, in Stockholm). A 90-day truce was negotiated in the May meeting, and subsequent negotiations have focused on what China can give and where the US can make concessions.
It would be beyond the unexpected if negotiations led to a cooperative 'G-2', as it were. But then again, Trump is popular for being wildly unpredictable. As is evident in India's case, much in contrast to that of China, Trump sees little use in setting the baseline for negotiations. A 50% tariff slapped on India means that the US is effectively communicating hostility at levels seen only in the instances of a select few nations so far - Russia, China and Brazil.
Essentially, to the Trump administration, India is as much a problem to its economic growth as is China and/ or Russia - only, with China, there is a willingness to enter a state of managed competition. With India, his exact words while pronouncing a pause in any truces and talks were, "Not until we get it [presumably, the oil trade issue] resolved." In India's case, 25% tariffs have been levied by the US purportedly for not having markets "open" enough to American products, especially in the dairy, fishing and agricultural sectors. An additional 25% tariffs were levied a few days ago to punish India for its decision to continue purchasing Russian oil and petrochemicals. Like China, India has a deadline of August 27 to deal with before the secondary tariffs come into play, even as the initial 25% became applicable on August 7.
Why The Softening
Despite the lack of clarity, a few factors could be considered to explain this development. The first is a rather straightforward explanation - that New Delhi's refusal to acknowledge the Trump administration's role in the "mediation" with Pakistan ticked him off, and the treatment meted out to India is a distinct case simply using the same justification as the one used against China - the trade with Russia, and its fuelling of the war in Ukraine. Though certainly plausible, the hope is that saner voices in the Trump administration prevailed against deploying a far-fetched view such as this to compromise a fairly stable and prosperous partnership in the Indo-Pacific.
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The second possibility is that Trump's legacy trade policy agenda, involving the re-shoring of supply chains back to the US and away from China, started to yield repercussions - both political and financial - which were hard to justify to American consumers and producers. As was evident in the case of China's April 2025 licensing restrictions on exports of rare earth elements and magnets to the US, American firms (such as auto suppliers) quickly demanded that a solution be negotiated before domestic production was hindered. Hence, it was felt necessary to negotiate with China at least, which, from the perspective of the US's trade basket, is a much more vital partner than India. But because the President's election campaign and policy today are based around a few non-negotiable promises - ending the Ukraine war, bringing jobs back (especially from India) to the US, and reducing trade deficits to turn up profits - there must be a sacrificial state.
Scapegoat Situation?
India would seem like the right option in such a scenario. There already existed issues pertaining to the H-1B visa and immigration. When layered with the administration's belief that the China challenge can be dealt with by the US alone, it would appear that getting concessions out of India would seem more critical than maintaining secure ties. The European Union is largely aligned against Russian aggression, and its imports of processed Russian oil from India would be less of a concern if the source is targeted directly. Not to mention, the EU has other obligations vis-à-vis matching American contributions to NATO to keep the transatlantic security guarantees alive.
Finally, it could be the case that India's attempts to allow a thaw with China after a long halt in high-level political dialogue post-Galwan appeared to Trump to be a subversion of the proverbial "glue" holding Washington-Delhi ties together. Though, the degree to which such a convergence against China existed in the first place may be exaggerated, or could even be interpreted as hope rather than reality.
A Test For New Delhi
In any case, India has not taken the tariff decision sitting down. On August 6, New Delhi reaffirmed its strategic partnership with Moscow at a meeting of the India-Russia Working Group on Modernization and Industrial Cooperation. A day ago, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Tianjin, China, for the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Leaders' Summit was confirmed in no uncertain terms, after weeks of speculation. Based on India's national interest, the flexing of strategic autonomy and multi-alignment may be a good start.
But there is no denying that going forward, there must be an effort to negotiate with the US. No immediate concessions are expected or essential, but the ongoing deliberations on market openness and supply-chain de-risking are much-needed anyway. India's relations with the US, Russia, or China have all had their ups and downs, but the test of New Delhi's balancing act is here. And this time, it doesn't demand concessions and diplomacy alone - it demands reform, especially domestic.
(Anushka Saxena is a Research Analyst with the Takshashila Institution's Indo-Pacific Studies Programme.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
