Public sentiment is predominantly critical of Trump, with significant concerns about the implications of his deteriorating relationship with Modi on US-India ties. Commenters emphasize India's sovereignty, pride, and resilience, arguing against alignment with US interests, while expressing disappointment in Trump's policies and skepticism toward US intentions. Many advocate for India to pursue its own independent path and prioritize its relationships and economic stability over reliance on the US.

Donald Trump

Narendra Modi

United States Government

There are two things going on here at the same time: 

**1).)** U.S. is looking for an excuse to renegotiate trade with India. Both sides have been trying to negotiate a trade deal for quite some time, but there are huge issues: India will not sell out its agricultural base and the U.S. can’t really put tariffs on digital services from India the way it can physical imports from other nations. This makes India extremely difficult to negotiate with but at the same time, extremely important for America to strike a deal with before India erodes America’s white collar base without giving reciprocal access to its consumer market. You simply can’t put tariffs on your IT guy in Bangalore the way you can car parts from Germany because no physical good is crossing a physical border.

What’s happening now is that the gloves are coming off: America is trying to play hardball and express displeasure with India. The problem is that India is just in the flat out superior negotiating position. America may have a technology edge but this is being eroded and India is trending towards further expansion economically and in terms of human capital. Withholding technological transfer to India will not work, because the technological gatekeeping the U.S. used in the past is already being eroded by China. If the U.S. continues then it opens up the U.S. to IP/technological theft not just from China but India as well, which will be fatal to U.S. domestic industry. 

The U.S. should have renegotiated trade deals with China and India after the 2008 financial crisis but both the Chinese and the Indians were too effective at stalling the negotiations to the point that now they have the upper hand. Now they are trying to make up for lost time and doing too much from too weak of a bargaining position. 

**2.)** The bigger issue is that the recent India - Pakistan conflict exposed America’s position. During the conflict Pakistan could reliably count on diplomatic support from Turkey, China, **and America**. India received no support at all from the Quad during this conflict. The IMF even financially bailed Pakistan out during the conflict and Trump/Vance attempted to mediate on behalf of Pakistan while equivocating the two sides internationally. For India, this was a massive red line. 

Subsequently, Trump invited General Asif Munir (ie not Pakistan’s PM) to the White House to negotiate using Pakistani airspace to bomb Iran. This demonstrated to India that the U.S. simply will never give up Pakistan. 

So now India in a position where it sees that the U.S. is not only unreliable diplomatically but that it will always prioritize relations with its mortal enemy *and* that will try to impede India’s technological development further. 

I’d argue that all of this was very predictable.

CoachKoranGodwin

He already tanked the relation with India. 
Even if he backtracks tomorrow, which we all doubt, there is no guarantee that he wouldn’t change his mood again the day after. 
And even if he is out of office we now all have seen, that Americans could vote another lunatic into office anytime. 
Trump is the beginning of the end of US dominance. We, the world, should thank him for this.

mastermindman99

An entire new generation of Indians, born from the late 90s to 2000s will now learn &amp; internalize why their previous generations took a cautious distrustful approach with the US. Sigh. This is penny wise pound foolish move by Trump.

PersonNPlusOne

Thing is, India never relied on US. So title is kinda...you know..

JustGulabjamun

I’ll agree about the bizzare nice treatment of Pakistan and China  but the stuff about secondary sanctions over Russian oil is pretty classic American stuff and viewed from a Rus/Ukr view instead of a south Asian foreign policy one makes a lot of sense.

spinosaurs70

What I don’t quite understand is why the U.S. deep state appears to be giving Trump so much leeway.

The strategic direction of a nation is shaped over years—often decades—not in reaction to short-term political shifts.

Trump now seems singularly focused on forcing Russia to end the war. But even if that happens in the next couple of months, the underlying damage to U.S. alliances and trust is already done. The relationship with key partners is strained, perhaps irreparably.

So what exactly is the endgame here?

curiousstrider

Henry Kissinger said \`It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend, is fatal. To understand what being America's friend meant to Afghans, an Afghan army officer shared his personal story for my blog. A story on fighting the Taliban, to the heart wrenching time he was abandoned, as Kabul fell. My article also features a first person account from a student in Kabul, on life under the old US ally, the Taliban.  
  
[https://rpdeans.blogspot.com/2025/07/fighting-taliban-and-betrayal-afghan.html](https://rpdeans.blogspot.com/2025/07/fighting-taliban-and-betrayal-afghan.html)

Dean_46

I’m not sure there’s much I can add here that hasn’t been said already. It’s a huge mistake for the US to antagonise both India and Brazil at the same time, especially since it’s for idiotic reasons in the first place. 

The best way to get both nations to limit their trade with Russia is to offer them long term stable commitments that help improve them. India has a population of well over 1.4 billion and one that is still growing. 

The other way to get those countries to limit their trade with Russia is to let them see that Russia is an unreliable partner and one that isn’t capable of offering much. That’s something they need to experience on their own terms and not be subject to threats of sanctions or tariffs. 

Biden had a much better grasp of geopolitics.

Ethereal-Zenith

If India genuinely does employ a pragmatic and transactional approach to relations with major powers beyond its region then surely a few ripples in US bilateral affairs can be managed easily 

The Indian logic of buying Russian oil is it is simply pursuing its interests. ‘We do balancing, it’s the cheapest option and our economy takes precedence, Ukraine is not our fight’. Fair enough.

The US logic is it is simply pursuing its own interests. ‘We have an opportunity to humble Russia and protect Ukraine, India’s support of Russia enables them and imposes costs on the US in terms of military aid and posture’. Fair enough. If Russia can be stopped the US can get troops out of Europe quicker.

Strong_Remove_2976

Just 25? Go to the back of queue. They ripped 80+ years of relationship with us.

Jazzlike_770

Why did you reelect Trump, my American friends? But on a more serious note I think that indian people and the American people are very much aligned - far more stable than earlier. I don't think that the president can spoil this much.

houstonrice

That's someone's plan, no doubt. Or the plan of a number of state actors. Or both, either way.

DanoPinyon

trump is risks thanking every countries relation

Legitimate-Proof5152

Consider it tanked. 

The Indian-US rapprochement of the last few years bucked a decades long trend of misalignment and disconnect. Trump’s erratic behavior now basically confirms some of the long held fears and prejudices in India regarding Western interests and influence.

Trump really is a bull in a China Shop

Open_Management7430

[deleted]

The signs should have been obvious to other world leaders when Trump began his offensive against the rest of the world, starting with Canada, within days of assuming office.

They should have been crystal clear when he booted and neutered his no. 2, Elon Musk, in less than four months.

Trump 2.0 is different from Trump 1.0. The older version at least maintained his transactional relationships, the newer version just expects everyone else to do what he asks or suffer the consequences. Even his own family members are absent from the White House this time. This term is entirely for himself.

1-randomonium

The India US relationship had strong bipartisan support. It takes a special kind of stupid to undo about 25 years of diplomacy, when the relationship moved from adversarial to \`strategic partner'. His uninformed and inappropriate tweets did that.  
The US has no Ambassador to India and does not seem inclined to appoint one.  
I guess he fired some of the old India hands at the State dept.

Modi went out of his way (in retrospect, foolishly) to invest his personal gravitas in   cultivating a relationship with Trump. I guess the six Trump towers in India were not enough of an inducement.

The idea of a "friend" in geopolitics is laughable in the first place.

RocketMoped

[While other world leaders vow to fight Donald Trump's tariffs, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is sitting pretty (5th of April)](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-05/is-donald-trump-bromance-narendra-modi-dead-india-tariffs/105136850)


This isn't to be inflammatory, but rather to show that any friendship or a concilliatory stance with Trump will be taken advantage of. It doesn't matter who it is.


In a prisoner's game, he's the player who always chooses to betray and that's hard to believe because most people don't make it through life with that kind of attitude. The tough part is for people to realize this stupid and obvious truth; that the emperor is naked.

ChairLordz

Trump fucks everybody, even his own people who voted for him.

kyyla

Please. The obsequious “besties” shtick by Modi was like watching a street grifter try to steal America’s wallet.

HistStill2371

In what, specific, concrete way has Modi been a "True Friend" to the US?

GrizzledFart

What has it gotten for India? What about millions of Indians coming to America ok pursuit of a better life?

Ooofy_Doofy_

And being a “true friend” to India got the average American what, exactly, besides overly cheap pharma?

IrwinJFinster

The Washington Post argues that U.S.-India relations have plunged to new lows as Donald Trump’s transactional approach to trade clashes with Narendra Modi’s political constraints, particularly over tariffs and agricultural access. Trump imposed steep tariffs on India, refused to grant the reprieve he extended to China, and allowed his adviser Peter Navarro to publicly berate India over Russian oil purchases, deepening the rift. 

Although an eventual trade deal is likely, the piece warns that the damage may linger depending on whether allies are treated as genuine partners or mere conveniences. Modi, meanwhile, has sought to balance by visiting China for the first time in seven years while simultaneously reaffirming India’s commitment to the Quad in Japan, demonstrating New Delhi’s tightrope walk between nationalist pride, electoral politics, and geopolitical strategy.

telephonecompany

Will this tariff impact prices I pay for Basmati rice in the US? I buy that regularly.

unserious-dude

We can’t have anything but a transactional relationship with them.We need to learn to stand on our own in the new multipolar world.They keep rejecting us despite being natural allies.I understand Trump is an exception but the US has always wanted atleast a compliant state that aligns very closely with their own foreign policy and we can never be that for them because of our difficult neighbourhood.

Inquisitive_Pleb

USA was being offered a trade deal (so sweet) which India has offered no one! India also supported USA’s stand by clearly telling Putin that it is not time for war. But in return, USA taught a very important lesson to India.

ridersofthestorms

India sees the dedollarization of the world happening sooner than the US does.

blueprint_01

Every Prime Minister from Nehru to Modi ended up learning the lesson the hard way. The US is not a friend. It goes out of it ways to confront us despite having no conflict of interest of great significance (Russia is not one). It remains puzzling and one suspects that there is more to it than what meets the eyes. Judging from the former interviews of Home ministry officials especially when it came to their collaboration with US counterparts post 26/11, I wondered why we Indians never contended with the simple fact of US apathy and even hostility at times. 

Prickly nationalism has little to do with it. I mean all the agreements that have been signed rarely gets dissected and judged for its merit and the end results. I think that the Indian elite's Americophilia (irrespective of political affiliation or loyalty) has shielded and ended up killing chances of having the uncomfortable discussions on what the India US government to government relations have delivered. Why does the commercial relationship which neither government played much of an active role in building up gets equated with the G2G equation is beyond me. 

Why do we bring the Brookings and Carnegie people who are clearly not associated or relevant to the relationship? Why are the armed forces so hellbent to building up dependency on a country that publicly threatens its closest allies with the use of the famous kill switch? Uncomfortable questions regarding Mr Headley and his DEA connection are never asked. Do we fear that the answer would not be to our liking or are we trying to be diplomatic? If India did not matter that much, why are our domestic issues being made part of the discourse? If the strategic partnership is there and thriving why doesn't the US and Indian government not look eye to eye on issues regarding the neighbourhood itself? Especially even if some of the said moves on the part of US are helping the so called common adversary China. Why are our redlines brushed aside while we have to follow red line of some other US ally (not talking about Ukraine) which has little bearing on us? Mr Bessent called SCO performative. But if I did not know better, the US India relationship gets the crown for being high on performative spectacles and very little on substance. Why is this administration determined to plant pieces and news pieces on supposed technological help to India when such collaborations never take off? Why is strategic altruism talked about when there has been very little strategy let alone altruism? 

Many questions and very few answers. The incongruence is not some kneejerk observation but rather stems from a detailed observation of the relationship. Are we ever going to ask these questions? Or do we continue with the normal hunky dory messaging as this government tends to do when it does not want to confront the reality.

Choice_Ad2121

Please send him to Chaina for real. We don't need him

Mark19914

Almost every word of this video is hitting hard. Little exaggeration but the point remains!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX8gC4WrD6E

Kristin_McQueen

All is happening too quickly to make sense. Everything will go back to where it was before as soon as India and the US reach a deal. India and China are not natural allies, they can’t trust each other. Russia wants to keep India away from the US. And India can’t stay away from the US.

dwightsrus

Indias trade deficit with China already runs at a 100 billion for electronics and durables. India is basically addicted to cheap Chinese shit built on slave labor like most of the world. In addition, China already controls Pakistan and Sri Lanka and India is too smart to be next. India does not have any cards here unfortunately other than to find alternate markets for their cheap labor products which Im sure they eventually will.
The NYT is already reporting that the Trumpster did not get the support he wanted from Modi for the Nobel prize (for apparently helping with the Pakistan conflict which is laughable at best) and these tariffs were a result of this phone call on June 11th that went south.
This is all about Trumps oversized ego, but I do think a trade deal will eventually get worked out but in the meanwhile there will be tension.

Beneficial_Signal_67

I would broadly agree with the OP except that Trump has caused a rift with almost everyone. He as antagonised the closest US allies. He has got BRICS to be more relevant and serious discuss reducing their reliance on the dollar and Europe to start thinking of being more independent of the US. This will get India to explore more areas of cooperation with both China and Russia.

There is way too much doomerism wrt India-US in this publication as well as on Foreign Policy, on Stimson Centre and a bunch of others. Mostly because the majority of Indian readers are likely to click on this type of content. Indians are paranoid that they will not become a developed country.

From my perspective it’s good to have such articles. Because as a great man once said - Only the Paranoid Survive.

noobflounder

This provides a brutally realist view of how bad the relationship is and how limited India's future options are. Not very pleasant reading for any Indian or any proponent of the US-India relationship, or even the India-Russia relationship.

&gt;Trump’s return to the White House has complicated each of the assumptions New Delhi held. **Instead of girding itself for great-power competition, the White House is scouring the world for short-term gains. Through that lens, Washington has much more to gain from China than it does from India; the war in Ukraine must end because supporting Ukraine is not worth American taxpayers’ money; and Europe’s problems with Russia are Europe’s problems, not those of the United States.** In such a worldview, India’s geopolitical profile invariably shrinks.

&gt;...

&gt;Washington’s revised approach to great-power competition has not only transformed its own policy toward New Delhi but has also influenced the choices and decisions of other major players—with significant implications for India. **Russia, for instance, has sensed that Trump is far less committed to supporting Ukraine than was Biden, is less interested in the systemic challenge posed by China to the U.S.-led world order, and is reluctant to provide security commitments to allies in Europe and Asia.** As Trump prepares for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week, he seeks to punish India for buying Russian oil—a policy that the United States previously encouraged. With Trump in the White House, Russia has more options and needs India less.

&gt;...

&gt;Indeed, Moscow feels a diminishing obligation to New Delhi and is unwilling to offer more support than it receives, which explains its lukewarm backing during India’s clash with Pakistan in May. Russia’s public statements at the time were vague: they neither mentioned Pakistan by name nor endorsed India’s military reprisals, but simply called for settling disagreements diplomatically. In a sense, Russia echoed India’s own messaging after the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Nevertheless, the statements alarmed New Delhi’s Russia watchers, who expected the Kremlin to stand by India, condemn Pakistan, and affirm India’s right to retaliate—much as Israel did in its full-throated support for India. Indian analysts suspect that Russia refrained from doing so because it didn’t want to irritate China, which has become a close strategic partner of Pakistan and provided it with a great deal of new weaponry.

&gt;**Going forward, Russia is likely to prioritize closer ties with China over its declining relationship with India. Sensing victory in Ukraine, Moscow has new priorities: it now seeks partners capable and willing to challenge the United States and Europe, not merely offering commercial relationships.** China can do that, but India is only interested in trade. Russia may therefore be reluctant to support India in any future Indian-Pakistani conflict, owing to China’s ties with Pakistan. If Russian support for India is doubtful during a conflict with Pakistan, it’s safe to assume that Russia will do little to help India in any future conflict with China.

It's also not pleasant reading for anyone who is worried about the long-term fate of the current US-dominated world order.

&gt;**Trump seeks deals with China and Russia, browbeats traditional allies and friends, and seems content to speed the emergence of some kind of G-2 condominium in which the United States and China carve up the world between them.** In such a world, India’s geopolitical importance declines dramatically.

&gt;This is not just India’s plight. The story in Europe and among American treaty allies in Asia is similar. In that shared doubt about the United States, however, lies a potential salve for India’s injured foreign policy. India could strengthen partnerships with European countries and major Asian powers, such as Japan and South Korea, who face their own balancing dilemmas because of the unreliability of the Trump administration.

A pretty good objective summary.

A transactional US meets with the world. Everybody for themselves. Which isn't a bad thing in the long run: it will just get more volatile.

SubstantialSquash3

India, with the highest tariff rate in Asia, will still be the fastest growing major economy. These massive tariffs will have a paltry affect of hitting growth rates by about 0.2-0.3%. India is also a consumption-driven economy. This explains why such worthless agenda pieces keep sprouting up.

&gt; And yet, paradoxically, India’s response to its current predicament is likely to be, well, more of the same.

Because its the correct path.

Old-Machine-8000

Good article but we are reading too much into it. 

Trump operates like a king in a courtroom. He is tackling the 3 courtiers one by one, punishes India to signal to Russia that he means business when it comes to making peace deal and sends a warning to China that it’s next if peace deal is not reached. In turn both China and India now need to push Russia to make peace else they will suffer.

Empty-Pumpkin7618


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When will foreign countries figure out Trump is diplomatic suicide — he just wants his name in as many history books as possible.

invalidpassword

Not surprising: Modi might tell himself that unlike Trump, Xi is actually rational.

Johannes_P

All confidence has been lost and the entire world is divesting from the US. The damage Trump has done, and will continue to do, is generational in nature. The US' image as a stable and reliable figure on the global scene has been obliterated. 

Which is of course exactly what Putin wanted and why he so vigorously assisted Trump and his far-right party into power.

CatalyticDragon

You know, before COVID, before Ukraine, and before the Orange Trumpster Fire, I was in contact with someone who worked in the USG, a self-assured liberal, who told me why he thought it would be the right thing to do to make India the champion of the West, as the "world's largest democracy."

It just shows how little both sides of the Washington aisle understands these issues. One side are white supremacists that see India as a mass of mud people, and the other are just carrying kind words to use said mud people as their meat shields. Even my "friend" couldn't grasp the idea that India might have national interests of its own.

But but democracies support each other...

World doesn't work that way, k?

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Why wouldn't India join with China? Just look and listen to almost any news outlet. The almost great and powerful, almost-knowing, almost-seeing Wizard of all Clowns tRump, always knows what is best for the US, sometimes. Drive another advancing superpower India (search; Communism in India), into the arms of Communist China. Check out how all the world respects our word. Shitler and the 2025 Gestapo have asked us to give to the rich so they may become even wealthier. Our democracy is being destroyed day by day. It almost appears like We the People, might soon join the league of communists' countries ourselves. China, India, N. Korea and Russia and so many more. Wake up America!

pogishushu

Former US National Security Adviser John Bolton has stated that the strong personal rapport between Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has 'evaporated,' significantly affecting US-India relations.

Impact of Trump and Modi's Deteriorating Relationship on US-India Ties

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