Losing the World’s Largest Democracy
Decades of careful diplomacy brought Washington and New Delhi closer together. But President Trump’s missteps put that fragile progress at risk, leaving the Indo-Pacific more uncertain.
The Historical Love-Hate Relationship
The U.S.–India relationship has always been uneasy. During the Cold War, India’s commitment to “non-alignment” placed it outside Washington’s camp. India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and later Indira Gandhi insisted on strategic autonomy, seeing both superpowers as equally untrustworthy. To American eyes, however, this often looked like quiet sympathy for Moscow.
Nothing deepened the mistrust more than Washington’s tilt toward Pakistan. In the 1971 Bangladesh war, the Nixon administration sent the USS Enterprise into the Bay of Bengal, implicitly signaling pressure on India as it fought to liberate East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The episode left a scar in New Delhi’s political psyche: the United States had chosen Islamabad, and by extension Beijing, over the world’s largest democracy.
Subsequent decades saw repeated strains. India’s nuclear tests in 1974 and again in 1998 prompted harsh U.S. sanctions. To Indians, this confirmed that Washington was inconsistent: willing to tolerate nuclear weapons in China, but not in a fellow democracy.
Yet beneath the frosty geopolitics, cultural and human ties quietly grew. Indian immigrants flourished in the United States, from Silicon Valley to academia. Bollywood and yoga softened perceptions. Even at the nadir of government relations, Indian public opinion of the United States remained surprisingly positive compared to attitudes toward Europe or Russia.
This paradox defined the relationship: governments at odds, but societies leaning closer. The reservoir of goodwill was there, waiting for leaders on both sides to draw upon.
Our Take: The Cold War showed how easily strategic mistrust can calcify into generations of estrangement. The U.S.–India bond has always balanced on a fragile line between suspicion and latent affinity.
Hard-Won Gains Since Clinton
The turn came at the dawn of the new millennium. President Bill Clinton’s 2000 visit to India — the first by an American president in more than two decades — marked a symbolic thaw. He praised India’s democracy at a moment when China was rising and Pakistan was increasingly defined by military rule and extremism.
President George W. Bush built on this foundation. His 2005 civil nuclear agreement with India was a breakthrough, effectively acknowledging India as a responsible nuclear power despite its refusal to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty. For New Delhi, this was validation — recognition that India was not merely another developing state, but a rising global actor.
President Barack Obama went further. He declared the U.S.–India relationship “one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century,” openly supported India’s bid for a permanent UN Security Council seat, and encouraged its role in Asian security.
President Donald Trump’s early moves, too, suggested warmth. He joined PM Narendra Modi at the “Howdy Modi” rally in Houston in 2019, a show of solidarity before a crowd of 50,000 Indian Americans. Both leaders spoke of shared resolve against China and Islamist terrorism. The optics seemed promising.
But trust, once eroded, is difficult to rebuild.
Our Take: U.S. administrations invested decades of careful diplomacy to elevate India from suspicion to partnership. This architecture was not inevitable — it was built painstakingly, brick by brick.
Trump’s Style and the Strains That Followed
Donald Trump’s foreign policy was famously transactional. He often viewed allies less as partners than as clients who owed him concessions. NATO was portrayed as a protection racket, Japan and South Korea as “freeloaders,” and Canada as a trade cheat. India was not immune from this mindset.
He publicly claimed, that he had personally prevented a war between India and Pakistan — a humiliation for New Delhi, which prides itself on never requiring foreign mediation. For India, sovereignty is sacred. The boast touched a nerve.
Trump then removed India’s preferential access under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), citing trade imbalances. For India, which had opened its markets incrementally and reluctantly, this was perceived as heavy-handed.
Perhaps most damaging were his personal theatrics. Trump exaggerated his friendship with Modi, mocked his accent in private, and treated the relationship as stagecraft. Indians, deeply sensitive to dignity and status, saw this as condescension.
The broader pattern was one of inconsistency: alienating allies while courting adversaries. He praised Kim Jong Un, deferred to Vladimir Putin, and extended courtesies to Xi Jinping, even as he unsettled leaders in Berlin, Ottawa, and New Delhi.
In doing so, he tested the cardinal rule of diplomacy: never diminish a proud nation in public. For India — a country steeped in civilizational pride and strategic autonomy — the discomfort lingered longer than any trade dispute.
Our Take: Alliances are built on respect as much as interest. By reducing India to a prop in his personal theater, Trump risked undermining a bond that had taken decades to build.
India’s Confidence to Push Back
India of today is not the India of the 1990s. It is the world’s fourth-largest economy, with a defense budget rivaling Europe’s powers. It leads the Quad alongside the U.S., Japan, and Australia. It has launched a moon lander, developed state-of-the-art indigenous missiles, and exported vaccines during the pandemic.
This newfound confidence has emboldened Delhi to push back. When Washington criticized its oil purchases from Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, India simply ignored the pressure. Energy security mattered more than Western tutelage. When the U.S. tried to frame India as a junior partner in its Indo-Pacific strategy, Indian officials reminded them that Delhi’s goal was “multipolarity” — not alignment.
This is not arrogance; it is strategic autonomy, a doctrine stretching back to Nehru. For Modi, nationalism and sovereignty are political currency. Being seen as bowing to Washington is a domestic liability.
Our Take: India’s rise has shifted the balance. The United States now needs India more than India needs the United States — a reversal that demands humility, not hubris.
Repercussions
The immediate consequence of Trump’s approach was a cooling of ties. While military exercises continued, India deepened its oil trade with Russia, buying record volumes at discounted prices. Washington’s sanctions threats rang hollow.
At the strategic level, suspicion grew in Delhi about America’s reliability. If Trump could treat NATO allies so unpredictably, what guarantee was there for India? The concern was not that Washington would abandon Asia, but that it might oscillate between engagement and retreat.
China saw an opening. Even amid tense border clashes, Beijing offered India the language of “multipolarity” and a seat at its alternative institutions — BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and Belt and Road–linked dialogues. For India, these platforms carried appeal: they affirmed its status as an independent pole, not a Western appendage.
Most worrying for Washington, the Quad — intended as a strategic counterweight to China — risks dilution if mistrust persists. Without India’s wholehearted alignment, the Indo-Pacific strategy becomes a shell.
Our Take: The line between partnership and estrangement is perilously thin. By unsettling India, Washington risks weakening not just bilateral ties but the broader geometry of Asia.
Two Scenarios
Repair and Renewal
A wiser U.S. policy could still repair the breach. Washington could restore trade preferences, expand defense technology sharing, and back India’s global ambitions — a permanent UN seat, membership in export-control regimes, leadership roles in the G20. Above all, it must treat India as an equal, not a pupil.
If India feels respected, it will align more closely in containing China. The Quad could deepen, from military coordination to supply chain integration. U.S. and Indian navies could dominate the Indian Ocean, limiting Beijing’s strategic options.
Tilt Toward China’s Axis
But if arrogance persists, India may lean toward “multi-alignment.” It could balance Russia and the West, while accepting Chinese economic inducements. Even unresolved border disputes would not preclude selective cooperation. India’s participation in BRICS and the SCO could evolve into genuine strategic hedging.
For the U.S., this would be a historic setback. Without India, the “Indo-Pacific” becomes a hollow concept. China would face a fragmented opposition, granting it freer rein in Asia.
Our Take: Which scenario unfolds depends not on geography or economics, but on diplomacy. Respect is the hinge. If America miscalculates again, the strategic map of Asia may be redrawn.
Opinion
For much of the past half-century, Washington treated India as an afterthought. It was neither ally nor adversary, too large to ignore but too independent to embrace. What changed was not simply India’s rise but America’s recognition that the twenty-first century would be shaped in Asia. And for Asia’s future, India mattered.
The Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations invested political capital in reshaping this relationship. The nuclear deal under Bush, the partnership rhetoric under Obama, the symbolic outreach under Clinton — these were deliberate efforts to overcome decades of mistrust. They succeeded in bringing India into the American orbit without forcing it into formal alliance.
Trump inherited this progress. He could have consolidated it, strengthening a coalition to balance China’s growing influence. Instead, he allowed it to fray.
His misstep was not that he disagreed with India on trade or defense, but that he personalized the relationship. For him, foreign policy was performance art. The Houston rally with Modi in 2019 was not about strategy but about optics. He wanted applause, not architecture. And when India did not bend, he pressed rather than persuaded.
This might have worked with smaller allies dependent on American security guarantees. But India is different. It is a civilizational state with its own sense of destiny. To imagine that New Delhi could be cajoled into compliance was to misunderstand its history and politics. Each time Washington threatened or scolded, Indian officials turned back to the doctrine of autonomy and reminded themselves that reliance on the United States was always provisional.
The irony is that the United States needs India more today than at any point in recent memory. China is more assertive, Russia more disruptive, Europe more divided. The one emerging power with the scale, geography, and values to balance Beijing is India. Yet Trump’s approach left India feeling more alienated than embraced.
The cost of this approach is already visible. India hedges between Washington and Moscow, deepens its role in BRICS, and resists being folded into America’s strategic umbrella. It accepts U.S. cooperation but resists U.S. tutelage. That independence may serve India well, but it limits Washington’s options in Asia.
The lesson is clear: respect matters. Trump often treated foreign leaders as though they were business partners — to be pressed or charmed into concessions. But diplomacy is not a deal sheet. Nations have pride, memory, and strategy. India, above all, embodies all three.
If the next U.S. administration — Republican or Democrat — wishes to salvage this partnership, it must begin by recognizing India’s equality. That means treating India not as a junior partner but as a peer with its own interests and red lines. Only then can the fragile architecture of the Indo-Pacific be stabilized.
Thin Red Lines Analysis: The U.S.–India relationship is not doomed, but it is strained. The line separating partnership from estrangement depends less on military exercises or trade volumes than on the intangible currency of respect. Washington ignored that truth at its peril.