In Trump-Modi standoff, ‘egos' and missteps fuel resentment

Washington Post

3 days ago

NEW DELHI — President Donald Trump's top adviser on India, Ricky Gill, was having dinner here last week with former Indian diplomats. Though he was in town for a global security conference, the conversation turned, inevitably, to Trump's souring relationship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Trump had called India a 'dead' economy and punished New Delhi with 50 percent tariffs for buying Russian oil. Indian officials were expressing frustration that trade negotiations had been upended; they were also angry that Trump kept claiming credit for resolving the country's recent military confrontation with Pakistan.
Gill, the National Security Council's senior director for South and Central Asia, tried to assuage the former diplomats, assuring them Washington still viewed New Delhi as a crucial partner, according to the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. But Gill noted there was one thing irritating Trump's team: Why were the Indians still obsessing over how the conflict in May had ended?
The diplomats were 'surprised' by the question, the people familiar said. India has made no secret of its long-standing position that issues with Pakistan, its nuclear archival, should be handled bilaterally.
The episode illustrates a broader truth about the rapid devolution of relations between the United States and India: Both countries are struggling to grasp basic factors driving each other's foreign policy, leading to missteps and misunderstandings — and fueling mutual resentment.
Meanwhile, Trump and Modi, populist leaders prone to bombast, have increasingly taken the diplomatic dispute into public view, complicating the search for solutions. It may be harder now for them to compromise on core issues, for fear of looking weak or alienating their right-wing bases, according to political analysts and former U.S. and Indian officials.
If the standoff continues, analysts said it could shake up the geopolitical order, badly damage India's economy and undo years of work on both sides spent building the U.S.-India partnership.
In a statement, White House spokesman Kush Desai said the administration could 'accomplish two things at the same time: address unfair trade practices that have left American workers behind and maintain our strategic partnership with India.' Modi's office did not respond to a request for comment.
'Trump needs his ego salved. Modi wants to be seen as uncompromising on Indian interests,' said Christopher Clary, an expert on South Asia and an associate professor at the University at Albany.
'The Trump-Modi personal relationship has broken,' he added. 'The only question is whether it can be repaired.'
The United States and India seemed primed to strengthen ties when Trump returned to the White House. During his first term, in 2019, Trump hosted a massive 'Howdy Modi!' rally for the Indian leader in Houston. Modi reciprocated in 2020 with a 'Namaste Trump' rally in Ahmedabad.
When Modi visited Trump in the Oval Office this past February, they pledged to increase trade between the United States and India to $500 billion by 2030. The Indian leader also played to his audience. 'In the language of America, it's 'Make India Great Again' — MIGA,' Modi said at the White House, drawing a smile from Trump.
'When America and India work together, this MAGA plus MIGA becomes a 'mega partnership for prosperity,'' the prime minister declared.
Beneath the public displays of warmth, there were always more ominous undercurrents. Trump has called India a 'big abuser' of tariffs and a 'tariff king.' Indian officials have resisted U.S. demands to make trade concessions on agriculture, dairy and seafood — sectors that employ tens of millions of people. But it was India's military showdown with Pakistan in May that took tensions to a new level.
In April, militants killed 26 people, most of them tourists, in Indian-administered Kashmir. New Delhi blamed Pakistan for the attack, which Islamabad denied, and India carried out its deepest cross-border strikes in decades. Pakistan downed Indian fighter jets and targeted Indian bases. The conflict ended abruptly May 10 after Trump posted on Truth Social that he had helped negotiate a 'FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE.'
Trump continued to repeat the claim over the following months, suggesting he had used trade threats to seal the deal. Pakistani leaders thanked the president for his help and nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize. Anger built in India. In June, Modi told Trump in a phone call that the ceasefire was achieved through talks between the two militaries — and not through U.S. mediation — according to a statement from Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri. After that call, Trump hosted Pakistan's army chief, Asim Munir, for lunch.
'If I was advising Trump, I'd ask him to dial down the rhetoric and be sensitive to India's concern on Pakistan,' said Ajay Bisaria, the former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan. 'And on Modi's part, I think there should be some private communication giving … the Americans more credit for what they did.'
While it remains unclear how central U.S. meditation was to ending the conflict, Clary said Washington maintained 'an active role in searching for de-escalation,' keeping 'open lines of communication with both countries' and acting as a conduit for messages between them.
The Modi government's insistence that Washington played no part in winding down the conflict has hurt its relationship with the White House, said Sanjaya Baru, who served as media adviser for former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh when he was in office. But he said it reflects what Modi prioritizes most: mollifying his Hindu-nationalist base.
Modi wants to be perceived as the 'macho Hindu leader' fighting Pakistan, Baru said, and acknowledging American involvement would undermine that self-image. 'When you make domestic politics your priority, then foreign policy falls by the wayside.'
For both Trump and Modi, he added, the political now risks becoming personal, making it harder to find an off-ramp.
'These are huge egos,' Baru said.
Last week, Trump significantly ratcheted up tensions by levying 50 percent tariffs on India's exports to the United States, which he described as a punishment for Indian purchases of Russian oil.
Trump's advisers have also taken an increasingly hostile tone toward New Delhi. Days before the president's executive order, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said on Fox News that 'India portrays itself as being one of our closest friends in the world … but they don't accept our products.'
Peter Navarro, a key architect of Trump's economic policies, told reporters outside the White House on Aug. 6 that 'India is the maharaja of tariffs' and that the decision to raise tariffs was 'a pure national security issue associated with India's abject refusal to stop buying Russia oil.' New Delhi has been the top buyer of Russian crude oil since 2023, according to the ship-tracking company Kpler.
Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesman for India's Ministry of External Affairs, said in a statement that India's purchases of Russian oil were 'based on market factors,' describing the U.S. tariffs as 'unfair, unjustified and unreasonable.'
At an event in New Delhi last Thursday, Modi reiterated he would stand firm against any U.S. trade deal that hurts the country's farming, dairy or fishing industries. 'I know personally I will have to pay a heavy price for it,' he said. 'I am ready for that.'
His government is also signaling it will strengthen relations with the BRICS bloc, which includes Brazil, Russia, India and China, which Trump accuses of 'anti-American' policies. After last week's tariff announcement, Reuters reported that Modi would visit Beijing this month, his first such trip in seven years. Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval said that Russian President Vladimir Putin would soon be in town for a visit, according to local media. After an Aug. 7 call with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Modi said on X that 'A strong, people-centric partnership between Global South nations benefits everyone.'
Lindsey Ford, a former senior director for South Asia at the National Security Council, said the current trajectory bodes ill — not just for the United States' relationship with India but also for its ability to compete with China across the Indo-Pacific region. She questioned if Trump and Modi's advisers could bring them back from the brink.
'They need to pull it out of the public domain as quickly as possible,' Ford said. 'The path we are on right now has a real risk of upending decades of careful relationship-building.'
Supriya Kumar contributed to this report.