Life after a bromance gone wrong

Looks like the Trump–Modi bromance is officially over. On 6 August, the reliably unpredictable US President announced an additional 25 per cent tariff on imports from India, taking overall duty on Indian exports up to a jaw-dropping 50 per cent — the highest rate going when Trump last spoke on the subject.

The new punitive tariffs are, to quote Trump on Truth Social, because ‘they don’t care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine’. He also accused India of selling (refined) Russian oil ‘on the Open Market for big profits’, likely the point that really rankles.

It’s worth noting that Trump hasn’t thought of trying to similarly browbeat China, which is the biggest buyer of Russian oil, or Turkey, another big buyer. He has, in fact, extended the period of trade negotiations with China, easily the US’s biggest competitor, but has tried to bully India, supposedly the US’s strategic partner and a fellow Quad member. With his latest salvo, the US–India relationship is at imminent risk of retreating to near-Cold War frostiness.

Modi’s silence hasn’t helped. His diplomats are working overtime to contain the damage, but the likely benefits of their exertions are doubtful at best. Officials in the US state department may even sympathise with their pleas, but their big boss is not one to listen. Secretary of state Marco Rubio is very much his master’s voice when it comes to India sourcing oil and gas from Russia.

The only way of dealing with the current occupant of the White House is to be firm. But unlike Brazil’s Lula, who stood up to Trump, Modi has not demonstrated the courage or resolve to do so — and the Trump administration clearly thinks that India will baulk when he barks.

For whatever reason, Trump now seems determined to humiliate Modi, whose attempts to ingratiate himself with Western heads of state have been quite cringeworthy.

Trump tightens the tariff screws again

They have tolerated it — or have even tactically flattered him with sundry awards — to either smooth their entry into the Indian market or increase their presence or secure new deals. But not — as India’s mainstream media would have us think — out of any real regard for Modi.

If Trump’s current belligerence is tactical, then India can hope that in due course, he will reduce the base tariff. But a commentary on the Carnegie Endowment’s website makes for grim reading. ‘The repoliticization of US–India relations,’ it says, ‘…is a slow-motion catastrophe.’

While it may be hard to plan for Trump, Modi seems to have misread the man, or was blinded by his own desperation to cosy up to him. He deviated from India’s tried-and-tested foreign policy to deposit most of his eggs in the American basket. Caught up in all the grandstanding about his muscular foreign policy, he failed to account for the fact that China was a difficult neighbour that had been brought around with shrewd diplomacy; or that Russia would feel slighted if India abandoned P.V. Narasimha Rao’s post-Cold War maxim of multi-alignment.

It is disingenuous of external affairs minister S. Jaishankar to now proclaim that India was pursuing “multi-alignment” or “strategic autonomy” while knowing full well that he has been party to Modi trying to abandon this position. With his own affinity for the United States, Jaishankar should have known that the US, more than the Soviet Union, believed for a sizeable part of the Cold War that if a nation was not with it — in effect, not toeing the Western line — it was against it.

India is caught between a rock and a hard place: it can’t annoy Russia as it is heavily dependent on its weapons supplies. Yet, this relationship will infuriate Trump, who will expect that India demonstrates its allegiance to the US. This is Modi’s doing: he led the West, Washington in particular, to believe that India was now in their camp — a foreign policy blunder that is threatening to really weaken India’s position.

India diplomatic antics land it between a rock and a hard place

Pakistan returns from the cold

The US–China–Pakistan triangular pact was modelled in July 1971. Henry Kissinger, then national security advisor to President Richard Nixon, made a secret trip to China via Pakistan. Islamabad acted as an intermediary, since it enjoyed close relations with both countries.

The US’s main enemy then was the Soviet Union, whose ties with China had fractured in the 1960s, leading to a seven-month military confrontation in 1969. The Chinese economy was in a shambles. Kissinger took advantage of China’s economic crisis with an offer to open up the US market to Chinese manufacturers, facilitated by American investment. The objective was to split the communist fraternity of the USSR and China.

For another 40 years after Kissinger’s secret sojourn, India had to contend with the US–China–Pakistan axis until the Islamabad/ Rawalpindi nexus fell out of favour with Washington — for having double-crossed America in the ‘war against terror’ in Afghanistan.

The brotherhood between China and Pakistan, though, not only stayed intact, but strengthened to an ‘all-weather’ alliance. India managed to blunt this to some extent by sealing the Border Peace and Tranquillity Agreement in 1993, luring Beijing with opportunities in the Indian market and identifying common ground on matters like terrorism. China, notably, dropped its objection to India being granted a waiver from Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines, following the ground-breaking Indo–US nuclear treaty in 2008.

Trump’s return as president in January and his apparent fascination with crypto-currency, fossil fuels and rare earth minerals has brought Pakistan back into the US frame. The formula for keeping Trump onside is to indirectly give the Trump Organisation or his children business opportunities. India knew this too, but did not move quickly enough in the misguided belief that he held Modi in high esteem.

Pakistan, meanwhile, was making moves. After Operation Sindoor, it entranced Trump by nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Flattery goes a long way with him too.

Even during the freeze in US–Pakistan diplomatic ties, the camaraderie between their militaries wasn’t extinguished; rather it witnessed a revival after a resumption in the training of Pakistani military officers in the US.

In December 2023, Pakistan’s army chief Gen. Asim Munir, the man who really calls the shots in that country, made a trip to the US to iron out the kinks in bilateral ties developed during Imran Khan’s premiership. The Pentagon, reportedly, re-committed to defence cooperation, and Pakistan’s handling of Operation Sindoor has apparently catalysed the cooperation.

Appearing before the Armed Services Committee of the US House of Representatives on 11 June, Gen. Michael Kurilla, chief of the US Central Command, said Pakistan had been a “phenomenal partner” to America in countering terrorism. The Pakistani military, he said, had apprehended “at least five ISIS-Khorasan” extremists using intelligence provided by the US and advocated strengthening relations with it as well as with India. The ISIS-K was accused in the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing at Kabul airport, which killed 13 US troops and more than 170 Afghan civilians.

Within days of Kurilla’s submission, there were signs of a thaw in US–Pakistan relations. Munir was invited to a private lunch with Trump, who described the newly minted field marshal as an “extremely influential man”, adding for good measure: “I love Pakistan!” This, when the Modi government was trying to persuade the world to name and shame Pakistan as a State that sponsored cross-border terrorism.

A few years ago, Trump had defined Pakistan as offering “nothing but lies and deceit”. He now seems to be looking at Pakistan as a strategic US partner in dealing with the Gulf region, including Iran. If Trump returns America to the Nixonian dogma of hostility towards India, Modi would have played an outsize hand in that outcome.

Ashis Ray can be found on X @ashiscray. More of his writing can be found here