India's White House pushback is necessary but don't rupture ties

New Delhi cannot give in to the American president's outlandish demands but the bilateral relationship remains valuable

- HARSH V. PANT

Pakistan's chief of army staff, Field Marshal Asim Munir, issuing nuclear threats against India from American soil is perhaps the new normal in India-US relations in the age of Trump. Though the US President has grown more restrained in recent days, the shock of Donald Trump wielding open trade threats at India now threatens to derail the hard work done by successive Indian and US administrations since the end of the Cold War in shaping the positive trajectory of this bilateral relationship. As Pakistani generals are feted in Washington and reports emerge of a possible trip to China by Trump via Pakistan sometime soon, cold warriors in Delhi are out in full force, reminding the nation "we told you so." It matters little that many of those complaining most vociferously about Trump's treachery today are the same people who were cheering his victory last year the loudest. Just a few months ago, it was Joe Biden's deep state that was said to be out to get India and challenge its rise in the global order. Many Indian social-media intellectuals saw in Trump a fellow conservative whose presumptive special friendship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi would deliver India-US ties from all friction. This irrational exuberance over Trump's win ended with Operation Sindoor, when Indians realized that his self-serving approach to interstate relations has little strategic coherence.