At his inauguration in January, US President Donald Trump seated India’s foreign minister in the front row, signalling a priority on strengthening ties with the world’s largest democracy. Eight months later, Trump is lamenting that India has slipped into China’s orbit. His Truth Social post on Friday, which showed Narendra Modi alongside Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in China, acknowledged that his pressure tactics may have backfired, the New York Times reported.
A gathering in China signals shifting alignments
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit this week provided stark visuals of Modi in close conversation with Xi and Putin. For India, the visit marked Modi’s first trip to China in seven years and underscored its skill at hedging between rival powers. While it is too soon to call this a strategic shift, the optics raised alarms in Washington about India’s willingness to align, even temporarily, with China and Russia in search of leverage.
Trump’s tactics and India’s response
Trump has imposed heavy tariffs on India, in part as punishment for its purchases of Russian oil. He also angered New Delhi by claiming he had “solved” its military conflict with Pakistan — an assertion Indian officials flatly denied. Analysts say such gestures feed the perception that Washington is an unreliable partner. “India feels that the US is not a very reliable partner,” said economist Devashish Mitra. “If India is moving towards China, it’s a friendship of convenience.”
Playing hardball with allies
The US president’s approach mirrors his domestic political style: back allies into a corner, then use leverage to demand concessions. Trump’s negotiator’s instincts have at times delivered trade deals and foreign policy wins. But when applied to sensitive partners like India, they risk leaving “lasting scars,” warned Joshua White of Johns Hopkins University. The strategy also appears selective: while India was hit with tariffs over Russian oil, China, a much larger importer, has avoided similar punishment.
A wider pattern of estrangement
India is not alone. Trump’s tariffs and grievances have strained ties with other US partners, including Egypt, Turkey, Vietnam, Brazil and South Africa. His policies have accelerated a broader trend of countries seeking alternatives to Washington by leaning toward Beijing and Moscow. At the same summit in China, leaders from multiple states once considered close US partners appeared alongside Xi and Putin. Trump’s critics say this aggregation of disaffected nations shows his tactics are driving them together rather than prying them apart.
India’s balancing act
Despite the optics, Indian analysts caution against reading too much into Modi’s appearance with Xi and Putin. India still values its partnership with the United States, particularly in countering Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific. But as Rajesh Rajagopalan of Jawaharlal Nehru University noted, Trump’s rhetoric makes it harder for Indian leaders to align openly with Washington. India’s long history of resisting outside interference adds another layer of sensitivity.
Trump’s blunt-force diplomacy has reshaped alliances in unpredictable ways. While Washington has not “lost” India, as the US president suggested, his tariffs and rhetoric have complicated a relationship that both nations view as strategically vital. Whether India edges closer to China or reaffirms its partnership with the US may depend less on Beijing’s outreach than on whether Trump can temper his tactics.
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