Since the U.S. and India began trade negotiations, officials from both countries have consistently claimed that India could be "one of the first countries to reach an agreement with the U.S.", but the talks quickly hit a deadlock, with significant disputes emerging in areas such as automobiles and agriculture. Currently, the U.S. has extended the deadline for suspending reciprocal tariffs on certain countries from April 2nd to August 1st.

What are the biggest difficulties and challenges for India in this round of trade negotiations? How can we interpret the subtle changes in U.S.-India relations since the May India-Pakistan conflict? What new characteristics have emerged in U.S. diplomacy toward India during the Trump 2.0 era?

On the afternoon of July 8th, at the academic seminar "International Political and Economic Situation in the Trump 2.0 Era" hosted by the School of Economics and Management of Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, Assistant Researcher Xie Chao from the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University delivered a speech titled "Features and Challenges of U.S.-India Relations in the Trump 2.0 Era". Based on observations of domestic policy debates and recent developments in the U.S., he conducted an in-depth analysis of the important shift in U.S.-India relations under the context of Trump's return to the White House.

With authorization, Observer Network has compiled and published the content of the speech for reference by all readers.

Xie Chao: The topic I am reporting today is "Features and Challenges of U.S.-India Relations in the Trump 2.0 Era". Since it is called the "Trump 2.0 Era", it means that it differs from the past. To answer this question, we need to first define and assess the previous situation. A basic judgment is that since the Trump 1.0 era, U.S. policy toward India has mainly reflected a one-way approach of luring India, which is very obvious.

This started in the Trump 1.0 era. Since 2017, when the U.S. systematically proposed the "Indo-Pacific Strategy", the U.S. has been actively and unilaterally rapidly elevating India's international status, constantly increasing India's position in the U.S. global strategy, with increasingly enthusiastic and even somewhat exaggerated rhetoric. In 2018, Trump unilaterally suspended military aid to Pakistan, which was itself a recognition of India's international status, interpreted by India as one of the landmark achievements of Modi's government's foreign policy at that time.

However, the one-sided luring in the Trump 1.0 era mainly focused on the security and political fields. In the economic field, trade imbalances led to some friction between the U.S. and India. During the Trump 1.0 period, the U.S. trade war mainly targeted China, but there was also a small-scale trade war with India, which had some impact on U.S.-India relations.

By the time of Biden, this one-sided luring characteristic covered political, security, technology, and even economic fields, especially in the economic field, as the U.S. no longer insisted on the issue of trade surplus with India, and its foreign policy toward India showed a more clearly one-sided luring feature. Even if there were some minor frictions between the U.S. and India in the later stage of Biden, this trend remained largely intact.

Based on this observation, the U.S. foreign policy toward India in the Trump 2.0 era will retreat from this comprehensive one-sided luring strategy. This judgment is also based on the recent extensive debate within the U.S. about the nature of U.S.-India relations. Since the outbreak of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, especially around 2023, a large-scale discussion on the essence of U.S.-India relations has taken place in the U.S.

Ashley Tellis' views are particularly representative. He has long been a proponent and practitioner of U.S. policy toward India, and after moving to academia, he has continued to advocate vigorously. However, in 2023, he published an article in Foreign Affairs, stating that the U.S. bet on India was wrong. At the same time, he criticized both the U.S. and India, claiming that the U.S. bet on India was wrong, which triggered backlash in the U.S., with accusations that he, as a former "designer, manager, and promoter," was shifting responsibility for the mistake of betting on India.

June 2025, Ashley Tellis' article "India's Dream of Great Power" screenshot from Foreign Affairs

Recently, he published another article titled "India's Dream of Great Power". The background is that the Trump administration is deeply adjusting its policy toward India, and at the beginning of the Trump 2.0 era, Tellis adjusted his wording, no longer criticizing U.S. foreign affairs, but instead focusing on criticizing India's dream of great power, that is, the U.S. betting on India was not wrong, the mistake lies in India's insufficient response, and many policies did not meet American expectations.

Based on these analyses, we have a basic judgment: the U.S. will no longer engage in unilateral luring. Specifically, the challenges facing U.S.-India relations will focus on the following areas:

First, the trade friction between the U.S. and India will once again become prominent. For Trump 2.0, he found that the trade issues he tried to resolve in the 1.0 period did not ease but became worse after four years of Biden. In 2024, the U.S.-India trade surplus reached 36.7 billion U.S. dollars, becoming an issue that cannot be ignored. From the perspective of Trump's transactional leadership style, the lack of expected returns from the continuous unilateral luring will inevitably prompt him to hope to renegotiate with India in the trade area.

This trend has already been observed: before and after the "Liberation Day", Trump repeatedly criticized India's "high tariff policy", calling India the "King of Tariffs". Even on February 14th, during the joint press conference between the two sides of the visit by Modi to the U.S., Trump still mentioned the tariff issue in front of Modi. Subsequent U.S.-India trade negotiations also showed that there are structural obstacles between the two sides on the issue of tariffs. In areas of concern to Trump, such as steel, auto parts, and agricultural products, India has little room for compromise, especially in the agricultural sector, because it directly relates to the regime security of Modi's government, and farmers and rural populations are groups that must be won over for votes. Therefore, every Indian government has always resisted external pressure to open up the agricultural and rural markets.

The current progress of U.S.-India trade negotiations is very slow. India has always hoped to be among the few major countries that can reach a trade agreement with the U.S., thereby using tariff costs for transshipment trade, for example, like in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, where India used its friendly relationship with Russia and Europe to purchase Russian energy at low prices and then process and sell it to Europe.

After Trump returned to power, there was hope in India that the Trump 2.0 era might bring a new strategic opportunity for U.S.-India relations, because India's average tariff level of 26% at the time was relatively low. However, Trump's tariff policy is changeable, and if the negotiations fail, the possibility of trade friction will increase. Not long ago, India officially submitted a filing to the WTO, planning to impose punitive tariffs on U.S. products. It can be said that the trade differences between the two sides have become the main factor hindering bilateral relations.

Secondly, from a strategic perspective, the "India-Pakistan linkage" policy has re-emerged. In the Trump 1.0 era, Trump himself ended this policy in 2018. "India-Pakistan linkage" is a term with historical connotations in U.S. research, referring to the policy long implemented by Britain and the United States since India's independence. Its main features are three:

First, "equal emphasis on India and Pakistan", emphasizing the positioning of India and Pakistan as countries of the same rank, which is difficult for India, which has a strong sense of national pride, to accept, as India considers itself equal to China.

Second, "using Pakistan to control India", emphasizing the use of the policy toward Pakistan to shape India's policy toward the U.S., and when the U.S. is dissatisfied with India's policy, it exerts pressure on India by improving relations with Pakistan, forcing India to make concessions.

Third, "India-Pakistan reconciliation", pushing for reconciliation between India and Pakistan, with the ultimate goal of establishing a broader alliance against China in Asia.

After 2018, U.S.-Pakistan relations entered a relatively difficult period. However, after the recent India-Pakistan conflict (May 7th), interactions between the U.S. and Pakistan have significantly increased. After the Pahalgam terrorist attack, the Trump administration did not immediately support India, but instead emphasized its role in mediating the India-Pakistan ceasefire. Looking back at the features of "India-Pakistan linkage", Trump's current policy toward India almost reenacts the above three points, causing strong protests from India, which is why India has sent delegations to the international community to explain its policy toward Pakistan, and India has also strongly denied that the "Zardari Operation" did not achieve strategic goals.

General Muhammad of the Pakistani Army, Bloomberg

India's firm stance could not prevent the U.S. and Pakistan from drawing closer: recently, the Chairman of the Pakistan Army Staff, General Muhammad, visited the U.S., even proposing to apply for a Nobel Peace Prize for Trump, which almost confirmed the U.S. involvement in the India-Pakistan conflict, and the U.S. "India-Pakistan linkage" policy has been further clarified.

Finally, the ideological differences between the U.S. and India continue to persist. Regarding ideological differences, I believe my judgment last year is still applicable this year, although it is relatively less significant compared to the previous two issues. However, a basic observation point is that although both the U.S. and India follow cultural conservatism, the core of the conflict lies in the fact that the dominant ethnic groups in each other's countries are the minority groups that need to be "suppressed" in their respective countries, leading to some fundamental differences between the two sides.

In summary, in the Trump 2.0 era, based on the above characteristics, India's foreign policy toward the U.S. will face more challenges, and the era of India's "balancing act" in foreign policy is coming to an end, with its diplomatic isolation becoming more pronounced.

This article is an exclusive contribution from Observer Network. The content of the article is purely the personal opinion of the author and does not represent the platform's views. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited; otherwise, legal liability will be pursued. Follow Observer Network WeChat guanchacn to read interesting articles every day.

Original text: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7526366954060251658/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author and welcomes your attitude by clicking on the [top / down] button below.