This US-India spat is going from bad to worse

Truculent Trump's anti-India turn could have long-term consequences.

- Ravi Velloor

Six weeks ago, when I wrote about the downward spiral in US-India ties triggered in part by deteriorating personal ties between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, I had no idea how low matters would go.

This week, Mr. Trump not only slapped a hostile 25 percent tariff rate on imports from India, but he also doubled it on New Delhi's seeming unwillingness to bow to his diktat and cancel its oil contracts with Russia.

This is what you would do to national leaders you've come to dislike. Just look at Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Mr. Modi was a friend. It was only in September 2019 that Mr. Trump, running for re-election, stood next to Mr. Modi at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas, and proclaimed him "one of America's greatest, most devoted, and most loyal friends...who is doing a truly exceptional job for his people."

Now calling India a "dead economy," Mr. Trump has upended decades of bipartisan policy. Then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced 20 years ago that America would assist India to become a "major global power" in the 21st century.

"The relationship has certainly been disrupted. Whether or not it's been upended remains to be seen," former US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia Nisha Biswal told me this week. As Ms. Biswal, now a partner with The Asia Group, sees it, for the last couple of decades, Washington's approach on India was to take a long view on India's rise and cultivate closer convergence. "We also understood that as a rising power, the US was going to, in some ways, assume a greater share of the burden in how that relationship rose," she added. "I think the current administration has a different calculus."

THE RUSSIA ANGLE Trade matters were the spark, but both sides have now engaged in a multidimensional standoff.