Can Sergio Gor Help Arrest the Downslide in India-US Relations?

He will be well advised to keep India's red lines on mind.

- SURENDRA KUMAR

Everything isn't hunky-dory in India-US relations, no matter how many times we revisit those high-voltage, pulsating images of Howdy Modi in Houston and Namaste Trump in Ahmedabad and how fondly and nostalgically we reimagine the warmth and bonhomie of those jadoo ki jhappis. The current incumbent of the Oval Office isn't sentimental about personal chemistry nor enamoured by commitment to democracy and rule of law and common vision of a free, open, peaceful, rule-based and rule-abiding multilateral system in a multipolar world. For him, it's all business, that too in favour of the US. He seems to relish the spectacle of both foes and friends alike scrambling to sign agreements heavily weighted in favour of the US following his threats of imposition of high tariffs which he claims are bringing in billions of dollars in US coffers; that would balance trade and provide funds for MAGA. Those who aren't falling in line will pay a heavy price with imposition of additional penal tariffs for importing Russian oil.

India, the world's most populous country, the relations with which were once hailed by the American administration as "the most defining relationship of the 21st century" and the popularity of whose PM was envied by a US President who thought he would have to take his autographs in future, is intrigued at this sudden unfriendly turn in relations shaking the very edifice so assiduously built by successive governments in the US and India belonging to different parties over a quarter of a century. Many analysts, including Fareed Zakaria, believe this downturn and resulting rupture of trust would go down as the biggest strategic blunder of the Trump administration. According to John Bolton, former NSA, tariffs against India make no strategic sense. And Kanwal Sibal, former FS asks: how do you make sense of nonsense?