By Tom Fowdy
In 2017, the Trump administration commenced its "Indo-Pacific" strategy, a strategic pacific that came with the end of the US "war on terror" strategy and towards a militarisation of the Indian and Pacific oceans with the fundamental goal of containing the rise of China. Key to this strategy would be to cement India as its primary partner. India, although a country famed for its "strategic independence" foreign policy, was seen as indispensable, first, due to its geographic position of being a subcontinent expanding outwards into the ocean, and second, due to having a population of 1.4 billion and thus being an emerging great power itself, and therefore a long-term counterweight to China.
In the years that followed, America's relationship with India intensified, with Modi's "strongman" image complementing Trump's. In 2020, the geopolitical changes wrought by the COVID pandemic intensified this push. Modi believed that he could exploit anti-China sentiment in the West by repositioning India as an alternative source of manufacturing. As such, he dramatically escalated tensions with China, the Galwan Valley clash occurred, India banned TikTok, and began restricting investment from Chinese companies. It was quite clear at the time New Delhi had thrown its lot in with the West, believing that India's rise could be propelled by containing China's.
But then the world changed again.
2022 became the first turning point for India-US ties. Russia invaded Ukraine. India's policy of strategic independence seeks a multipolar world and thus seeks ties with all other great powers, even if China was unfavourable. As such, India has established a formidable relationship with Russia based on its defence and energy needs. India buys Russian arms and oil because the size of India needs a lot of arms, and at its developmental pace, needs a lot of energy too. This is not an ideological preference; on India's behalf, it is a national interest matter.
As such, when the West began requesting India to cut imports from Russia, it refused. However, because of the West's strategic reliance on India in the view of the wider "Indo-Pacific strategy," they did not exacerbate to full-scale pressure at this time. Still, relations between India and the US under Biden noticeably cooled because of this difference, engagement began to drop, and signs of hostility between China and India also began to thaw. The diplomatic standoff over the Galwan Valley clash came to an end, and diplomacy started to trickle again.
Then along came Trump. Although it might have been assumed early on that Trump would actually be more favourable to Modi given shared sentiment over right-wing, authoritarian-leaning nationalism, Trump acted surprisingly un-strategic to US foreign policy interests and unleashed a trade war on the entire world. New Delhi was not spared. Although India wants a strong and robust relationship with the United States, Trump wants countries to make unilateral concessions to America, compromising their fundamental national interests, so that they can gain commercially from it.
Likewise, while Trump's protectionist agenda in his first term was largely targeted at China, his campaign this time round is indiscriminate and thus he shows no tolerance for India's rise as a manufacturing superpower, which is precisely what Modi's hopes for the country were back in 2020 with the "made in India campaign" intended to do.
As such, Trump has demanded that India cut off Russian oil. In addition to a 25% tariff on Indian exports, he's since postured by raising it to 50% when New Delhi balked. This is, of course, a classic Trump playbook, and it has become so well established that he always caves in that a new acronym has been coined from it, called "Trump Always Chickens Out" (TACO), precisely as he aims to use the tariffs to coerce countries into getting what he wants, which usually works. Trump will then declare victory as he always does.
So, while this raises the likelihood that some kind of deal will eventually be reached, one must ask, is India prepared to sacrifice its core national interests purely to appease the US? How far can they go? I believe, personally, that Trump will demand India cut off Russian oil in exchange for buying absurd amounts of overpriced crude from the US instead. Every Trump deal has ended with a partial tariff relief, combined with a ridiculous commitment to impunity for US goods, or purchase and investment-based commitments.
This raises a new strategic dilemma for India, which shows that they cannot truly "put all their eggs in one basket." The love-in, which blossomed from 2017-2022, has fluttered away as the strategic environment has put India and the West at odds, thus questioning the fundamental logic of India's overt hostility towards Beijing. As I have always said, India must prepare itself for the reality that if it wants to "rise," there will come a point where the United States will find this intolerable and seek to suppress it. Although they have been found "useful" for the time being, so was China in the 1980s in relation to the USSR. Except this time round, Donald Trump has ensured it comes much sooner…
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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