Indo-US Relations: India's Strategic Resolve

 CHINESE DIPLOMAT SUN HAIYAN IS ONE OF FIVE VICE MINISTERS in the International Department of the Central Committee of the Com­munist Party of China (CPC), a large bureaucracy that oversees the exter­nal relations of China’s ruling party. Its vision statement says the IDCPC’s work is an “integral component” of China’s “overall diplomatic” work and that it has established ties with more than 600 political parties worldwide. When the Chinese embassy reached out to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to request an appointment for Sun, party functionaries responded cautiously though the vice minister had previously met a BJP team that had visited China. After some quiet consultation, a BJP office bearer conveyed the party will receive Sun at the BJP headquarters in central Delhi.

The discussion, when the Chinese delegation that included Ambassador to India Xu Feihong met BJP General Secretary Arun Singh and the party’s foreign affairs department in-charge Vijay Chauthaiwale, was not too remarkable but the hosts underlined the need for reciprocity for ties to improve. The Chinese side suggested regular meetings and visits, suspended since the June 2020 Galwan clashes that left 20 Indian soldiers dead, be restored and the two parties interact to improve an understanding of mutual concerns as also respective political systems. The BJP functionaries agreed better relations were desirable but were careful about making specific commitments. Sun also visited the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) office at Keshav Kunj in Delhi’s Jhandewalan and met Sangh general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale. The conversations, preceded by a nod from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), provide a window to not just the tentative thaw in India-China ties but to the tumult in international relations caused by the Trump administration’s weaponisation of tariffs and an adventurist foreign policy.

Around the same time as the Chinese delegation visited the BJP office, new US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor, a loyalist of US President Donald Trump, took charge in New Delhi and delivered a speech meant to broadcast a message aimed at soothing the frayed nerves in the India-US relationship. “I was with the President last week, and as we had dinner right after New Year’s, he recounted his incredible experience visiting India, and also his great friendship with the great Prime Minister of India, Prime Minister Modi. I also hope that the President will be visiting us soon, hopefully in the next year or two,” Gor said right at the beginning, emphasising the equation between Modi and Trump.

The reassuring notes were overdue as just a few days earlier US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick’s claim that the India-US trade deal was stuck because of Modi’s reluctance to call Trump when trade negotiations were in progress in 2025 was swiftly dismissed by India. “India and the US were committed to negotiating a bilateral trade agreement as far back as February 13 last year. Since then both sides have held multiple rounds of negotiations to arrive at a balanced and mutually beneficial trade agreement. On several occasions, we have been close to a deal,” said MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal.

LUTNICK’S NEEDLING AND his claim that the terms for the deal got tougher for India after it failed to close mat­ters early and that it had been given “three Fridays” to agree have not been commented on by the White House, but they are something of a pattern. His reference to Trump’s “staircase” philoso­phy of negotiations, which basically means countries that baulk at concluding a deal on US terms face stiffer conditions thereafter, finds no resonance with the Modi government. If it was Lutnick’s suggestion that India should have given in to US demands to open up politically sensitive areas such as agriculture, dairy and GM food, those roadblocks remain. Indian negotiators have not budged on these issues and there is little likelihood that they will. On the other hand, as US trade representative Jamieson Greer told a Senate panel in December, India has made its best ever offer even though the deal overall was a hard nut to crack. What Greer was alluding to was India’s preparedness to vastly increase US access to the large and growing Indian market and significantly increase defence and energy purchases to offset America’s anxieties over import of Rus­sian crude which, Indian interlocutors have assured, is declining.

The elephant in the room has been Trump’s apparent pique over India’s strong rejection of his claims to have mediated an end to the May 7-10 India-Pakistan conflict and the business dealings of entities linked to his family with Pakistan. In what was an unantici­pated twist in the script, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir managed to become Trump’s “favourite” field marshal and even carried pieces of rock purportedly of “critical minerals” that could be made available to the US. It is, however, now clear to both sides that the alleged mediation and any cosying up to Pakistan need to be put aside if the trade deal is to be concluded.

A day after Gor’s address to staff in India, External Affairs Min­ister S Jaishankar and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had a conversation, despite no elaboration, which seemed intended to move the needle on bilateral ties. “Just concluded a good conversa­tion with @SecRubio. Discussed trade, critical minerals, nuclear cooperation, defence and energy,” Jaishankar said on X and added, “Agreed to remain in touch on these and other issues.”

The US State Department’s Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott said Rubio congratulated India on enacting the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Bill that does away with the oner­ous insurance clauses preventing participation of US firms in In­dia’s civil nuclear energy sector. “He [Rubio] expressed interest in capitalizing on this important development to enhance US-India civil nuclear cooperation, expand opportunities for American companies, advance shared energy security goals, and secure criti­cal mineral supply chains,” Pigott said. On trade, he noted the two leaders discussed ongoing bilateral trade agreement negotiations and their shared interest in strengthening economic cooperation. “They also exchanged perspectives on regional developments, reaffirming the United States’ and India’s commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” said Pigott.

The flux in India-US ties, particularly due to the stuck trade talks, is the most significant aspect of US policy for the Modi government but not the only one. The Trump administration’s adventurism in Venezuela where it effected a sudden regime change by virtually decapitating the government by capturing Nicolás Maduro, the threat to annex Greenland, warnings to the Iranian clergy over cracking down on dissent and more admoni­tions to Mexico and Colombia are all new and radical shifts in US foreign policy. Commentators have seen a “hemispheric” or a “Donroe Doctrine” in the developments, suggesting that the Trumpian worldview sees Europe and the Americas as its turf and will brook no meddling in these regions. Does this, as has been suggested, amount to a withdrawal from the Indo-Pacific and acceptance of Russian and Chinese ‘zones’ of influence?

The Indian response to the dramatic Venezuelan episode was muted, expressing “deep concern” and calling for dialogue to en­sure peace and stability. The careful and pithy sentences reflect a pragmatic acceptance that grandstanding is of little use and is recognition that India has several irons in the fire that include but do not end at the stalemated trade deal. In his remarks, Gor elaborated on Trump’s regard for Modi, saying, “I can attest that his friendship with Prime Minister Modi is real. The United States and India are bound not just by shared interests, but by relation­ship anchored at the highest levels. Real friends can disagree but always resolve their differences in the end.” US diplomacy, he said, would support fair trade, mutual respect and shared security. Ad­mitting that getting the trade deal across the finish line will take some doing, Gor said work will meanwhile continue in areas like security, counterterrorism, energy, technology, education, and health. This is true since, even as the trade friction hogged public attention, US and Indian security agencies liaised closely with both nations returning individuals wanted by law enforcement authorities in either country without delay.

The overall drift in ties, the disparaging comments from mem­bers of the Trump administration like Lutnick and a new and unset­tling interventionist turn to US foreign policy leave India with little choice but to pursue multilateralism with greater zeal. Interactions with China have increased but the Modi government is moving carefully, adopting a strategy not unlike the one outlined by the father of Chinese economic liberalisation Deng Xiaoping, who de­scribed Chinese strategy as “crossing the river by feeling the stones.” The evocative phrase and the prudence it embodied were junked by current Chinese President Xi Jinping soon after he became supreme leader in 2013, believing as he did that the need for subterfuge and patience was over. The assertive policies towards Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific in general mean India is dealing with two superpow­ers—one which has turned suddenly unpredictable—at the same time. The balancing of relations with China needs to be a careful and calibrated process as Indian and Chinese forces remain forward deployed even though they are no longer eyeball-to-eyeball. As the BJP leaders explained to Sun and her colleagues, good relations need to be marked by reciprocity. The MEA green light for Sun’s meetings with BJP and RSS leaders was a message to Beijing.

The concern in New Delhi, one shared by many other world capitals, is that the unpredictability in US policies and Trump’s disregard for allies, whom he often treats worse than foes, can well work to the advantage of China. Although China’s unilat­eral and extractive actions are a cause for alarm, Trump’s open declarations of tapping Venezuelan oil and Greenland’s miner­als while corralling off these areas as US zones of influence are not very different. Doubts about whether the US will stand by allies and partners who are in China’s crosshairs provides the Chinese leadership a significant opportunity to browbeat critics and opponents while presenting itself as a more useful partner to others. Beijing’s lack of qualms about working with autocrats and greasing the palms of corruptible leaders has reduced many aid recipients to client states. The shrinking autonomy of African and Asian nations which entered Faustian deals with China has made the communist giant even more formidable although its seemingly unstoppable rise has been pegged back by slowing growth and stress in important sectors of its economy.

Gor rounded off his January 12 address by saying no partner is more “essential” than India and that the India-US relationship could be the most consequential global partnership of the centu­ry. He held out a soon-to-be-announced invitation to India to join the US-sponsored Pax Silica, which he said is a strategic initiative to build a “secure, prosperous, and innovation-driven” silicon sup­ply chain from critical minerals and energy inputs to advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, AI development, and logistics, as evidence of American good intentions. India, he said, will be invited to become a full member alongside Japan, South Korea, the UK, and Israel. These might be hopeful signs but moments of calm since Trump began his second term have been deceptive and the forecast for India and the larger Indo-Pacific remains stormy.