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Newsweek
14 hours ago
- Business
- Newsweek
Trump's Relationship With Modi Sours Over Putin
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The praise U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi lavished on each other only months ago seems a distant memory amid a deepening trade row involving Vladimir Putin's oil revenues. A standoff between Trump and India has emerged after the president imposed 25 percent tariffs on the country and followed this up on Wednesday with another 25 percent levy due to its purchase of Russian oil that funds Putin's aggression in Ukraine. But things between the pair had already started going south in May when Trump waded into a sensitive dispute between India and Pakistan. "That started the downward slide," Dhruva Jaishankar, executive director of the Observer Research Foundation America (ORF America)—which analyses foreign policy challenges for India, the U.S. and partners—told Newsweek. Newsweek has contacted the U.S. State Department and India's Ministry of External Affairs for comment. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Associated Press/Canva Modi's White House Visit Modi visited the White House in February as one of the first world leaders to visit Trump after his return to the presidency. They touted a friendship cemented throughout the Republican president's first term. But friendships can go through bumpy periods, and India was left peeved when Trump took credit for India and Pakistan agreeing to a ceasefire after four days of clashes in the Kashmir region both neighbors claim in full but administer it only in part. It followed weeks of clashes and missile and drone strikes across borders, triggered by a gun massacre of tourists that India blamed on Pakistan. Pakistan denied involvement. "India has had a policy of not inviting third-party mediation between India and Pakistan and Trump has gone against that," said Jaishankar. "For India, that's a pretty strong red line." Trump's Tariffs Trump's claims of intervention in a decades-long geopolitical spat were then followed by stalling trade negotiations. Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on all Indian exports to the U.S. from August 1, while at the same time giving China another extension. India—the world's fourth largest economy—called the tariffs unjustified. Trump added another 25 percent to this levy on Wednesday because like most of Ukraine's allies, he linked the proceeds from Russian energy to the continued funding of Putin's aggression. Exemptions remain for goods already covered under other sector-specific tariffs, such as steel and aluminum. Trump also insulted India's economy as "dead" and accused the country of buying "massive amounts" of oil from Russia and then selling it on the open market for big profits. These comments reflect international concern over the fact that Russian oil now accounts for nearly 40 percent of India's oil imports—a more than tenfold increase since before the war. Both New Delhi and Beijing have capitalized on the steep discounts offered by Moscow amid Western sanctions. India and China's vastly increased purchases of Russian oil have been viewed by Kyiv's allies as undermining the G7-led sanctions on Russia's energy exports, which aimed to choke the Kremlin's key revenue generator. This image from September 22, 2019 shows Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi with Donald Trump during a rally on September 22, 2019 in Houston, Texas. This image from September 22, 2019 shows Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi with Donald Trump during a rally on September 22, 2019 in Houston, Texas. Trump's anger with India reflects his frustration with the pace of trade talks, according to The Associated Press, citing a White House official. The AP said this has stung Modi's administration, which had been negotiating a trade deal that balanced India's protectionist system with opening up to American goods. It means that ties built up over the last 25 years are being put at risk by Trump's tariffs and social media statements, Ashok Malik, a former policy adviser in India's Foreign Ministry, told the news agency. "Trump risks tanking 25 years of U.S.-India relations," Evan Feigenbaum, vice president for studies at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote in analysis for the think tank released Monday. Feigenbaum also referred to Trump's criticism of U.S. companies that manufacture in India, as well as the U.S. leader's White House meeting with Pakistan's army chief as well as giving Islamabad a tariff rate of just 19 percent and a pledge to jointly explore Pakistan's oil reserves. After more than two decades of ties, "Trump is now in the process of dismantling this painstakingly built relationship," Feigenbaum added. Vladimir Putin greets Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, on October 22, 2024. Vladimir Putin greets Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, on October 22, Role Modi's first foreign trip upon his return to office for a third term was to Moscow to meet with Putin in June 2024. For Putin, India is part of his vision away from a U.S.-led world and a pivot toward the Global South. However, Modi's view is less anti-Western and more attuned to acting as a bridge between the West and the Global South, and he is not interested in Putin's hope for a de-dollarization of the world economy, Jaishankar said. The India-Russia relationship was based on strategic technologies but has faced problems in recent years, with defense imports from Russia more than halving between 2014 and today. This is partly due to the war in Ukraine, challenges with Russian supply chains and payment mechanisms. However India has shown no signs of turning away from Russia, despite Trump's threats. It doubled down on its cooperation with Moscow committing on Tuesday to increasing defense ties. Over the course of the war Putin started, differences between India and the U.S. over New Delhi's ties with Russia were communicated more privately under the Biden administration, Jaishankar said. "Differences over Russia were kept within a certain channel. The challenge with Trump is that a lot of the haranguing has been quite public," he said. As the world waits to see whether or not Modi will agree to Trump's demands, business-to-business ties between India and the U.S. so far remain intact, Jaishankar said. But if the spat deepens, "one wonders how other aspects of the relationship that have so far been somewhat firewalled might be affected."
NBC News
3 days ago
- Business
- NBC News
Modi was ready to 'make India great again,' then Trump put America first
The U.S. and India 's blossoming friendship is at risk of falling to pieces, observers have warned, as President Donald Trump threatens to substantially increase tariffs on Indian goods over its purchases of Russian oil. At the start of the year, India seemed to be one of the countries most likely to win Trump's favor, given its growing role as an Asian counterweight to China and Trump's close relationship with its leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But U.S. relations with India have instead come under strain over trade and other issues. Trump has threatened Apple and other companies that manufacture in India, moved closer to its biggest rival, Pakistan, and mocked India's 'dead' economy. 'He's threatening to undo, or at least hit pause on, what has been two decades of steadily improving relations between India and the U.S.,' said Dhruva Jaishankar, executive director of the Observer Research Foundation America, a nonprofit group in Washington. On Monday, citing India's 'massive' purchases of Russian oil, Trump said he would 'substantially' increase the U.S. tariff on Indian imports, which is already one of the highest among Asian countries at 25%. Along with China, India is a top purchaser of Russian crude oil sanctioned by Western governments after Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In a sharp response, India, a major U.S. security partner, said such criticism was 'unjustified and unreasonable' and that it bought Russian oil with U.S. support. 'India began importing from Russia because traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the conflict,' the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement Monday. 'The United States at that time actively encouraged such imports by India for strengthening global energy markets stability.' The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. U.S.-India tensions are mounting domestic political pressure on Modi, with opponents accusing him of failing to stand up to his 'dear friend' Trump. 'The country is now bearing the cost of Narendra Modi's 'friendship,'' the opposition Congress party said last week. 'I don't want you building in India' It was a different picture in February, when Modi was among the first world leaders to visit the White House after Trump returned to office. Mirroring Trump, he said he too would 'make India great again.' The bonhomie did not last long. Since then, Trump has needled India over a number of issues, including billions in investment by American companies as they shift manufacturing from China. Last quarter, India produced 44% of U.S. smartphone imports, more than any other country including China, according to data from the research firm Canalys. That includes iPhones sold in the U.S., the majority of which Apple chief executive Tim Cook says will have India as their country of origin starting this quarter. 'I don't want you building in India,' Trump said he told Cook in May, urging him to produce phones in the U.S. instead, despite the difficulties. Cozying up to India's foe A terrorist attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir that killed 26 people in April is another source of friction in U.S.-India relations. India responded by bombing neighboring Pakistan, which it has long accused of harboring terrorists, resulting in a four-day conflict that threatened to explode into a broader war fueled by decades of tensions between the two nuclear-armed countries. Trump irked India by repeatedly claiming that he had personally brokered a ceasefire. While Islamabad thanked Trump for mediating, India rejected claims of U.S. involvement, including in a call between Modi and Trump. 'India has not endorsed Trump's claim,' said Amitendu Palit, a former Indian finance ministry official and a senior research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. 'That has not gone down very well with Trump,' he said. Within weeks, Trump hosted Pakistan's powerful army chief at the White House in an unprecedented meeting. He has also imposed a lower tariff rate on Pakistan of 19% and said the U.S. had reached a deal with Pakistan on exploring its oil reserves. Squeezed over Russia As Trump has expressed growing frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he has turned his attention to India's relationship with Moscow. For years, New Delhi has benefited from its 'non-aligned' foreign policy, which allowed India to strengthen U.S. ties while continuing its longstanding relationship with Russia, one of its main suppliers of energy and military equipment. When Russian oil was hit with Western-led sanctions over Ukraine, India — the third-largest energy consumer in the world after China and the U.S. — seized the opportunity to buy it at a discount, which even U.S. officials said helped stabilize global oil prices. 'They bought Russian oil because we wanted somebody to buy Russian oil,' Eric Garcetti, the U.S. ambassador to India under former President Joe Biden, said at a conference last year. 'It was actually the design of the policy, because as a commodity we didn't want oil prices going up.' The U.S. position on India's oil purchases appears to have reversed under Trump, who said in a social media post last week that India and Russia 'can take their dead economies down together.' 'We are now at a stage where the American ability to control Russia and its allies is beginning to impact India,' Palit said. Jaishankar said that while Trump's actions won't push India out of America's orbit, they could drive India to strengthen ties with other countries such as China. During a meeting of their foreign ministers in Beijing last month, India and China agreed to resume direct flights between their countries for the first time in five years. Despite the recent setbacks in their relationship, India will continue to engage with the U.S. as a key strategic and technological partner, said Chietigj Bajpaee, a senior research fellow for South Asia at Chatham House, a London-based think tank. 'But I think it's a wake-up call of sorts,' he said.
