Can India move beyond faltering US ties?
Amid a US-China detente, India finds itself in a serious pursuit of “multipolarity” in the international system. But this still needs to be underpinned by strong defence relations with the US. Indian analyst Rahul Jaybhay explores the issue.
India-US ties took an unexpected dip in recent months, after years of deepening relations. Relations began to falter after US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs and worsened further when Washington claimed a role in defusing a limited India-Pakistan clash in May — a claim India has consistently denied. This episode has revived longstanding Indian concerns about American reliability and the hyphenation of India with Pakistan.
While these immediate causes abound, the underlying factors that once sustained the relationship are unravelling. Trump’s overhaul of the global economic order is unprecedented. The argument goes that this economic order has undermined US manufacturing capacity by offshoring production and supply chains and incentivising global trade, leading to a free flow of cheaper goods and services that has resulted in trade deficits for America.
To undo these effects, Trump’s neo-mercantilist approach was implemented by imposing tariffs to reduce trade deficits, relocating production chains to the American homeland, and using economic coercive leverage to ensure fair and equitable burden-sharing, which has arguably undermined allies’ and partner states’ trust in Washington’s credibility.
The proclivity for India to support multipolarity, therefore, will remain until it finds a reliable US to bet on.
India had larger balancing role under Trump 1.0
Under Trump’s push for reciprocity — a grand strategy aimed at correcting the lopsided economic advantages and calling for equal burden-sharing — the strategic competition with China has also taken a backseat as a priority in the Trump 2.0 administration, adding to the worries of Indo-Pacific partners and allies.
Declassified documents from the Trump 1.0 administration indicated that India was assigned a balancing role to undercut China’s domination. To do so, Trump elevated India’s status to Tier 1 in the Strategic Trade Authorization, treating New Delhi on par with allies to supply it with coveted military equipment.
High-level ministerial engagement was also instituted at the foreign and defence ministers’ level (2+2) to coordinate policies, resulting in the signing of two out of four foundational defence agreements. The revitalised Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) elevated the dialogue to the foreign ministerial level and, thereafter, to the leaders’ level, implementing a range of policies from Covid vaccine distribution to climate change management and enhancing maritime domain awareness.
Washington’s seriousness in courting India was visible during the 2020 Galwan crisis, when the US provided India with intelligence support facilitated by the signing of the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA).
US-China detente to India’s disadvantage
However, a slew of recent events highlights a change in the US posture towards China. Both China and the US struck a trade deal at the convened APEC summit, which the Trump administration referred to as “G-2”—a collaboration that suggests an incoming sphere-of-influence politics, troubling allies and partners regarding US support in light of China’s aggression. US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, in an X post, called the meeting “historic”, paving the way for “everlasting peace and success” for both countries and agreeing to form “military channels” to diffuse any conflicts.
The newfound rapprochement/engagement between the US and China suggests a developing detente; however, it may drift towards competition — a trajectory that remains unclear through the US administration’s policies. Unless the strategic competition takes concrete shape in the Indo-Pacific — beyond the US administration’s inchoate focus on the western hemisphere — there will be apprehension in the Indian strategic community about its continued rift in ties with the US.
The fact that efforts to ease border tensions began before Trump’s heavy-handed approach toward India suggests that New Delhi is determined not to lose any strategic options — with China remaining an essential “pole” in its portfolio.
India’s pursuit of ‘multipolarity’
While Washington’s underlying principles did cause strain in its ties with India, some of the causes can be attributed to New Delhi’s foreign policy. New Delhi’s exposition of a “free and open Indo-Pacific” did indicate its preference in collectively balancing China; however, India has also pursued its alternative politics: a serious pursuit of “multipolarity” in the international system.
Initially conceived as a panacea against the proliferating US liberal hegemony immediately after the Cold War, India’s bid for multipolarity has shifted to maintaining multiple options — and placing reliable bets in the international system — to diversify dependencies and manage coercion and pressure. This is exemplified by India’s growing engagement with China, which began with the Tianjin BRICS summit and was reinforced by the resumption of bilateral flights, halted in 2020 following the Galwan clash.
The proclivity for India to support multipolarity, therefore, will remain until it finds a reliable US to bet on. The decline in relations since Trump imposed tariffs on India and claimed to have intervened in limited India-Pakistan armed conflicts — policy levers Trump invoked — has inadvertently amplified New Delhi’s worries.
In this context, India’s advocacy for multipolarity is likely to strengthen if it perceives Washington as coercive or imposing terms that constrain its national interests. Such conditions give India the opportunity to sustain its rapprochement with China, helping to avoid any potential confrontation in which New Delhi might have to face Beijing alone.
The fact that efforts to ease border tensions began before Trump’s heavy-handed approach toward India suggests that New Delhi is determined not to lose any strategic options — with China remaining an essential “pole” in its portfolio. This recalibration also sends a message to Washington: tightening the screws on India could push New Delhi closer to other poles.
India and the EU have signed a trade deal after nearly two decades of negotiation, a process hastened by Trump’s disinterest in cultivating ties.
Widening options with the EU
This is perfectly visible in India’s recent engagement with the EU. It prudently fills the apparent US disinterest in New Delhi while also limiting Beijing’s coercion should it assume India’s apparent weakness, exacerbated by Washington’s mood swings. India and the EU have signed a trade deal after nearly two decades of negotiation, a process hastened by Trump’s disinterest in cultivating ties.
In terms of defence, both sides show promising potential. France accounted for 33% of defence sales to India (2019-2023), Germany is slated to provide New Delhi with submarines, and Italy and Sweden are enhancing partnerships to collaborate on “advanced defence systems”. These trajectories are bound to accelerate if Washington proves unreliable for New Delhi. However, to clearly signal its multipolar intention, New Delhi must cultivate ties with the EU to realise mutual ascent beyond the bipolarity of US-China competition.
... an unbalanced multipolar Asia as a system is inherently destabilising because such a configuration promotes China’s domination at the expense of India’s rise and others’ security...
Fears of a unipolar China
Nonetheless, this reliance on multipolarity undercuts Washington’s domination and reinforces China’s unipolarity — as statistically, no Asian power matches China’s wherewithal. A unipolar China could threaten India’s security, with offsets achievable only through a deeper security partnership with Washington. Further, an unbalanced multipolar Asia as a system is inherently destabilising because such a configuration promotes China’s domination at the expense of India’s rise and others’ security (Southeast Asian countries and US treaty allies in Asia).
In other words, India’s multi-alignment strategy must be anchored more firmly in its security interests, even amid broader aspirations. For this, India needs to prioritise its defence relationship with the US, which, despite recent political-level strains, has continued to grow and demonstrate strategic convergence.
India and the US have renewed their Framework for India-US Major Defence Partnership for the incoming decade (2025-2035) in October 2025, guiding more active defence engagement. This was reinforced by the US State Department’s approval to sell India 100 Javelin anti-tank missiles, along with Excalibur precision-guided artillery rounds.
Before this, as Pakistan courted Washington, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, at the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur, reassured India about the “deep, historic, and important” ties the two share. Despite the Quad’s inability to meet this year for a summit dialogue, in a historic first, Japan and Australia joined India and the US for the 2025 India COPE air exercise, followed by the MALABAR exercise, strengthening their commitment to Indo-Pacific stability.
... a flexible military relationship, even amid political-level strains, could provide practical avenues to reinvigorate the broader bilateral partnership.
Much earlier in the year, on 2 April, when Trump initiated retaliatory tariffs on India, albeit paused afterward, the US State Department sold the “Sea Vision Software” to India, augmenting India’s maritime domain awareness capability. Moreover, the two countries participated in the 4th edition of the Tiger Triumph exercise, a bilateral annual amphibious engagement that demonstrated high-level interoperability and coordination for managing a simulated Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) scenario. Trump’s 50% retaliatory tariffs, imposed in August 2025, were followed by a successful completion of exercise Yudh Abhyas, a HADR exercise convened annually by the US and Indian armies.
Despite diverging trends, India-US relations are poised for improvement. India’s weaning away from Russian oil and its latest decision to increase LNG import share from the US signal a potential revival in ties. To sustain this momentum, both countries will need to recalibrate their strategic convergence on China. Meanwhile, a flexible military relationship, even amid political-level strains, could provide practical avenues to reinvigorate the broader bilateral partnership.
