An opinion piece published by a leading U.S. news outlet explores how the Trump administration’s recent tactics are straining the hard-won strategic partnership with India. The author argues that while decades of diplomatic alignment were built through bipartisan effort, recent events—like sweeping reciprocal tariffs and pressure over energy sourcing—risk undoing this progress.
India’s investments in strategic autonomy, amplified by strong ties with China and Russia, have collided with the U.S.’s more transactional “America First” approach. The article notes that Trump’s tariff hikes and aggressive use of economic coercion have narrowed the space for collaborative policy. Reflecting on history, it cautions that politics on both sides now threaten to turn a mature partnership into a partisan political football—one harder to sustain and easier to lose.
