By The Diplomat | Created at 2026-10-02 16:47:04 | Updated at 2026-10-02 17:48:36
7 hours ago
On September 28, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a telephone conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump to review progress in bilateral cooperation. In a post on X, Modi described the conversation as “productive.” “We reviewed our bilateral cooperation in trade, defence, energy, critical technologies and other areas. We agreed to maintain close engagement to take our Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership forward,” he said.
While Modi’s post about his conversation with Trump was not negative, it was far less effusive than in the past, even bland. As Yashraj Sharma observed in an article in Al Jazeera, it was a “cold and formal depiction far removed from his description of the US president as a ‘good friend’ in previous years.”
The Trump-Modi phone call came at a time when already fraying bilateral relations hit yet another difficult phase.
Ten days earlier, Trump signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act (SRIA) of 2026, which gives the U.S. president the authority to impose up to 100 percent tariffs on countries that continue to purchase Russian oil and gas. India, which is among the largest buyers of Russian energy, could potentially be impacted.
India-U.S. cooperation has deepened and widened over the past two decades. Despite “complexities,” ties were expected to grow under Trump; the outlook was upbeat.
However, Trump 2.0 has not been good for the partnership. Within weeks of the inauguration of Trump’s second presidential term, ties began unravelling not only over tariffs and immigration but also Washington’s cozying up to Pakistan on a raft of issues, including terrorism, an issue that Delhi is highly sensitive about.
India was among the countries that were hit the hardest by Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs” announced last year. Adding insult to injury, India was then slapped with another 25 percent “punitive tariffs” for buying Russian oil.
Should the U.S. press ahead with imposing SRIA on India, it would hit India’s oil imports and, consequently, its energy security.
Over the past 19 months, although Indians took note of Trump’s abrasive remarks and insensitive tweets, they took it in their stride. The diplomatic establishment seemed to have adopted a patient wait-and-watch policy. India, after all, needed the U.S and benefited from economic and security cooperation with Washington. The current uncertainty was seen as temporary.
However, that mood in Delhi is changing. Its patience with Trump seems to be wearing thin. Officials and analysts are calling on the government to be more realistic in its assessment of the current India-U.S. relationship.
In an article in The Week, Navtej Sarna, a former Indian ambassador to the U.S., wrote: “We need to accept, without caveats, that the relationship has cratered significantly. In America’s eyes, India is not the strategic partner that we believed we were.”
A change is evident not just in Delhi’s mood but also, in its approach.
“India has reached the end of its tether with Trump,” a former official in India’s MEA told The Diplomat. “In the past we abhorred megaphone diplomacy, preferring to sort out nettlesome issues with friends quietly and only via diplomatic channels. That was India’s approach towards Russia’s intervention in Afghanistan in 1979, and its invasion in Ukraine in 2022, for example. But that is clearly changing,” he said. “India today is not averse to calling out, even friends, on difficult matters if core concerns are being undermined.”
This change was on full display last week during India’s Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar’s visit to the U.S.
At an event at the Asia Society in New York, Jaishankar did not hold back in drawing attention to Washington’s lack of “understanding or appreciation or empathy” for Delhi on issues of concern and sensitivity to the latter. He was referring to Washington’s courting of Pakistan despite the latter’s support for anti-India terrorism. “If one of my primary concerns is not fully appreciated by my partner, then clearly there is an impact of that on the relationship,” he said. Although he did not mention the U.S. by name, it was evident who he was referring to.
Strong India-U.S. relations have enjoyed bipartisan support in the U.S. over the past two decades. Whenever differences surfaced or ties frayed, Indian officials would avoid airing grievances to the media. They seemed willing to bide their time in the hope that this was a mere hiccup, a troubled phase that could be navigated. India being important to the U.S. in its strategy to contain a rising China, it was widely believed that the strategic partnership was solid.
But with the U.S.-China relationship seemingly moving to a phase of competitive coexistence rather than confrontation, India’s role in Washington’s containment strategy against China could decline. As Indian academic Atul Mishra pointed out, “If balancing China is no longer a priority, then India’s importance within America’s strategic calculus goes down.”
Especially after the recent meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, cracks are visible in the once-solid belief that India is important to the U.S. Apprehensions have deepened further amid Trump’s courting of Pakistan.
There are other reasons why the current troubled phase in India-U.S. ties may not be as temporary as Delhi believed over the past year. There is a growing perception that the fraying partnership may survive the end of Trump’s term.
According to Sarna, the current downturn in India-U.S. relations cannot be attributed to Trump alone. “Economic nationalism, racial supremacism, moral poverty, naked aggression and wanton disregard for international law and norms are trends which will outlast Trump; on many issues the centre has moved in American politics,” he argues, pointing out that Trump’s successor, be it U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio or even a Democrat politician, “may not be much different [from Trump], though a tad predictable.”
Meanwhile, all eyes in India have turned to India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal’s ongoing visit to the U.S. Many rounds of talks have taken place so far, and while India and the U.S. reached a framework for an interim trade agreement in February 2026, a final Bilateral Trade Agreement remains elusive.
Ahead of his U.S. visit, Goyal said that the India-U.S. trade pact was “almost done and dusted.” Should the two sides firm up an agreement soon, that could lighten the gloomy mood in Delhi somewhat. Of course, much will depend on what the final agreement brings India.
An agreement that is heavily weighted against Indian interests can be expected to deepen the prevailing pessimism in Delhi over its ties with the U.S.
