India-US ties: Up, close and personal

National interests and patient negotiations have to guide bilateral relations and treaties

- Rakesh Sood

Six months ago, at the White House, President Donald Trump and Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi were describing each other as “great” and “dear” friends, recalling the reverberating echoes of Howdy Modi in Houston (2019) and Namaste Trump in Ahmedabad (2020), and outlined an ambitious vision of India-US relations in an over 3,000-word-long joint statement.

Even as Canada rubbished Trump's call for it to become the 51st state, Nato, Japan, and South Korea wondered about the credibility of the US nuclear umbrella, and Europeans did their best to reassure a beleaguered Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, the February visit reassured India that the Modi-Trump relationship was intact and India-US ties were on a positive trajectory. Opinion polls across the world noted that Indians were the most optimistic about Trump's second term.

Bilateral trade talks began soon after. Five rounds have taken place but trade deals take long, years at times. But Trump's qualities do not include patience and subtlety. To push the Indians, he added a 25% tariff with a deadline of July 31.

Also, his second term was promising to be very different from his first. In his inaugural speech, he had talked of ending wars, of leaving behind a legacy as a “unifier and peacemaker”. It soon became clear that in addition to deploying his favourite policy tool, tariffs, to get his trade deals, his goal was the Nobel Peace Prize, preferably in the first year itself.