By Tom Fowdy
In the year 2019, Donald Trump embraced Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a massive stadium-filled event in Texas. A digital screen proclaimed "HOWDY MODI!" in a moment which symbolised, at the time, an increasingly closer partnership between Washington and New Delhi. Not long previously had the US Pacific Command (now back to its original name) been renamed as the "Indo-Pacific" command, a region which the United States had expressed as being integral to the world's strategic direction. The centrepiece of this whole strategy was to be an India itself, a prospective economic and military giant in its own right. In conjunction with this, many other Western countries rushed to follow America's lead in embracing New Delhi.
From the point of view of India's own national interests, the Indo-Pacific initiative, as well as the revival of the subsequent bloc known as the "Quad" (with Australia, the US and Japan) represented an enormous opportunity to turbocharge the country into an emerging great power, exploiting the Western deterioration in relations with China. In Modi's own logic, the political desire to extract supply chains from its giant neighbour would herald a new era of "made in India" and thus act as a transformative force for its own economic development, thus led to New Delhi itself purposefully destroying relations with Beijing, accumulating in the deadly 2020 Galwan Valley Clash, and then taking a massive protectionist posture.
However, the world of politics changes fast, and trends and outcomes that may always seem likely years ago sometimes never often materialise. Thus, what seemed the consensus only six or five years ago, so to speak, now feels an eternity away in its fading significance. Few people could have predicted that major events would occur that would change the entire paradigm of global politics, not once, not twice, but multiple times, from the COVID pandemic, to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, to the return of Donald Trump, to the Iran war, 2026 has nothing in common with 2020, and thus the President's second administration is likewise little like his first.
And with those changes, the American love in of India has ceased to exist, even as both countries still maintain some areas of mutual strategic consideration. As reported in the Guardian, Trump 2.0 is "unbound" and this has marked a "new era in US-India relations." While the US is not openly hostile towards India, the scope of what the US aspires from New Delhi has, without a doubt, massively narrowed. There is one answer to it: "MAGA." First of all, the White Houses' completely transactional, unilateralist and protectionist attitude towards trade now sees India as more of a threat, than a beneficiary to American interests. Does the United States want to turn India into a second China? Does it want the country to become a new manufacturing powerhouse which itself dominates global exports, markets and undermines American manufacturing?
The answer is no; it does not. While the US sees India as beneficial as a huge market for its own technology, internet and AI companies, not having the same restrictions or "closed shop" as China, the White House has otherwise slapped massive tariffs on New Delhi and negotiations to mitigate these have come to nothing. The second factor, however, is a bit more sinister: Immigration and identity. India is, without a doubt, the single highest net exporter of people in the entire world. Now the world's most populous country, large-scale Indian immigration into English-speaking Western countries, especially the United States, has been ubiquitous. This has, as I have noted in the past, produced a massive cultural backlash which has elevated racism of Indians into a new and highly visible category online, especially in right-wing American circles. Although these are concentrated in certain echo chambers and spaces such as X, the grassroots "upward" impact it has on the MAGA political sphere is real, this is because it concerns immigration, a core issue to this constituency, and the Donald Trump administration subsequently seeks to be hardline on the matter.
As a result, the White House has imposed massive restrictions on the issuing of visas to Indian nationals. This has of course had a damaging impact on American technology companies, given how well accomplished Indians are in the IT sector, but ultimately the protection of identity remains paramount in its own domestic political objectives. This reflects the new consensus, that while India may be a useful partner, becoming too close to it or enabling it too much ultimately has a domestic political cost to it. While Trump 2.0 has been the most consequential setter of this trend, it nonetheless extends beyond him, with relations first starting to cool under Biden as shifting geopolitical tectonics began to produce differences in national interests, namely the Ukraine war and partnership with Russia.
This, of course, reveals a deeper truth for India's own considerations: New Delhi first embraced the United States because it offered an opportunity for it to rise, but that was ultimately only a relationship of convenience, one attached to very specific circumstances, for India has always maintained independence in its foreign policy. It did not sign up to become a subordinate of the United States, for India ultimately aspires to exist in a multipolar world with itself as a pole of influence. Thus, as the world subsequently changes, New Delhi is reminded that it has many reasons to distrust the US again, while the MAGA constituency back hope acts as a reminder for Republican politicians that the strategic benefits of unconditionally embracing India are not worth the political cost on their two most important issues: trade and immigration.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Tom Fowdy:
Opinion | How Lula's re-election thwarts the New Monroe Doctrine in a relief for China
Opinion | Why Ukraine peace isn't as easy as an electoral wishlist
Comment