One of the most important alliances for the United States in the Asian geopolitical landscape is not going through its best moment. The relationship between the Trump administration and the most populous country in the world, India, is plummeting after the Republican once again threatened with tariffs, warning Delhi of a much harsher trade war if it does not stop buying oil from Russia.
Trump's unilateral fight with India is leading Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to approach its neighbor China after years of animosity. This is precisely what Washington has tried to avoid in the last few years, carefully nurturing its relationship with Delhi despite its proximity to the Moscow regime. At the end of August, Modi will visit China for the first time in seven years to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, a regional group that also includes Vladimir Putin's Russia.
Modi's return to Beijing coincided with Trump's latest commercial blow: starting on August 27, if the South Asian giant continues to purchase sanctioned Russian oil, taking advantage of the significant discounts offered by Moscow, it will face an additional 25% tariff, in addition to another 25% on Indian products imported to the United States, which came into effect on Thursday and was already among the highest tariffs imposed by Trump.
"They [India] do not care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian war machinery", wrote the U.S. President this week on his platform, Truth Social. Now, the 50% tariff that India is facing - sharing the podium of sanctions with Brazil - initiates an unexpected economic war against Modi's government.
From Delhi, where they reiterate that they have no intention of stopping buying Russian oil, they argue that these imports are linked to the energy needs of their more than 1.4 billion inhabitants. Politicians from Modi's ruling party as well as the opposition have criticized the "hypocrisy" of Trump, as the United States continues to import Russian uranium hexafluoride for its nuclear industry, palladium for its electric vehicle industry, and various fertilizers and chemicals.
"This is the first time in the history of independent India that a U.S. President demands a public display of subordination", says Sidharth Raimedhi, an analyst at the Indian Council of Strategic Defense Research, an Indian think tank.
Earlier this year, Modi was one of the first world leaders to be received by Trump at the White House. It seemed that ties between Washington and Delhi would strengthen with the Republican at the helm of the world's leading power, especially to counter China's influence and military expansion in the Indo-Pacific region. Also, because both leaders share a very conservative nationalist ideology, which seemed to strengthen their personal relationship.
In the beginning of his trade war 2.0, Trump made no distinction between friends and foes and also shook India with tariffs, to which Modi responded by making all kinds of concessions to Washington that did not sit well at home. Such as not publicly resisting the deportation planes full of irregular Indian citizens in shackles, some of whom had been living in the United States for decades.
Trump demanded that, to reduce the trade deficit, India should buy many more U.S. Defense and energy products, to which Modi also committed, aware that the United States is his country's main trading partner.
In recent months, senior Indian officials have been engaged in a diplomatic offensive towards Washington to seek a good trade deal. But the surprise in Delhi came when the Trump administration was closing trade deals in July with other allies such as Vietnam, Japan, and South Korea. It reduced all tariffs, except those on India, leaving India out of the agreements.
This was a hard blow for Modi, just when his country was putting a lot of effort into building a solid iPhone assembly industry for the U.S. market. Last May, Trump criticized that Apple should manufacture its phones in the United States instead of in India.
Now, for the first time, Washington is reacting to something that Modi's government has been doing for over three years: binging on sanctioned Russian oil to then refine and sell it at a higher price, especially as diesel fuel. "It is not acceptable for India to continue financing this war against Ukraine by buying oil from Russia", said Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief of staff, last Sunday. India, after China, is the country that imports the most Russian oil. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, it has gone from buying just 2% of Russian oil to over a third.
If India has achieved anything in these years, it has been to maintain its traditional "non-aligned" stance with any bloc, which it embraced during the Cold War. In other words, it has successfully juggled its strong alliance with Washington and Moscow without leaning towards either side.
Traditionally, Delhi has routinely backed Moscow in the most controversial international issues since both nuclear powers established diplomatic ties in 1947. India also voted against a UN Human Rights Commission resolution condemning Russia's actions in the second Chechen war and abstained from voting on UN resolutions in 2013 and 2016 against the Russian-backed Assad regime in Syria, just as it avoided condemning the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, as it did in 2022 with the attack on Ukraine.
In the times of the Soviet Union, the Russians sided with the Indians in defending their sovereignty in Kashmir and vetoed numerous UN Security Council resolutions calling for international intervention in this disputed region with Pakistan.
In the current regional groupings, India sits alongside the United States, Japan, and Australia in the Quad, the Security alliance to counter China in the Pacific. It is also part of the developing economies in the BRICS group, along with China and Russia, countries with which it also participates in two other economic partnerships.
Modi's strategy of presenting himself as a neutral actor, as a great international relations tightrope walker, has worked quite well, allowing him to maintain a high profile on the global stage. But now he faces an unprecedented challenge with Trump's threats.