When Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Washington this week, he can be becoming a member of an elite checklist of world leaders — historically US allies — who obtain particular consideration early in a brand new US administration. That is each a mirrored image of India’s rising significance to US pursuits within the Indo-Pacific and the world, in addition to of the Donald Trump administration’s view that the US alliance community, in and of itself, is inadequate to handle the complexity of a extra multipolar world. As Modi and Trump come collectively to debate bilateral relations and international affairs, India ought to pay shut consideration to President Trump’s hierarchy of wants, beginning with commerce and homeland defence and reaching ahead to international industrial improvement and the decision of US involvement in wars abroad.
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President Trump is transferring quick to enact key items of his home and worldwide agenda, together with an government order on reciprocal commerce that may kind the premise of a tariff scheme aimed toward leveling the enjoying discipline for the American employee and client. He has come arduous out of the gate to stress governments in North and South America to deal with each commerce deficits and the influx of immigrants from these continents into the US — and tariffs are the first software at his disposal. These strikes have been shocking, however not stunning; from his first time period and all through the latest marketing campaign, Trump has emphasised truthful commerce and border defence, and he has by no means been shy to make use of America’s vital financial heft to advance these targets.
Nonetheless, India has a helpful hand to play. First, in 2024 it held a uncommon commerce surplus with america, eradicating this from the checklist of potential bilateral irritants. Second, India’s rising worldwide weight is a web asset to the bilateral US-India relationship. With India’s bridging participation in varied multilateral and minilateral groupings, such because the Quad, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and BRICS, not solely can India symbolize the pursuits of rising economies with which the US needs to interact, however it is usually well-poised to play a counterweight function to that of China in Asia and the world.
On these subjects, India’s pursuits could also be aligned, if not an ideal match. The priority about China’s use of coercive energy continues to develop as increasingly more examples of its stress campaigns come up. Whereas the border dispute between India and China appears to have calmed following a profitable strategy of diplomacy between prime Indian and Chinese language diplomats, the dispute is just not resolved and the actions of the previous couple of years have engendered severe suspicion. This distrust was evident not too long ago when information broke of China’s development of the world’s largest hydropower dam on the higher branches of the Brahmaputra river, which was obtained in Indian and international media as a severe potential risk to water safety.
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Nonetheless, India is unlikely to affix a full-throated US-led coalition straight opposing China. First, India has its personal financial pursuits in sustaining a cordial relationship with China — its largest buying and selling accomplice — even because it begins to compete towards China and its companies for shares of world manufacturing, particularly within the high-tech worth chain. Second, India needs to take care of distance from safety actions exterior its instant area, a development that has, from a US perspective, lessened the effectiveness of the Quad as a test on Chinese language use of drive and coercion.
The US’s expectations for the Quad within the second Trump administration are shaping up. The grouping is clearly a excessive precedence, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio instantly convening the Quad on the Overseas Minister stage and the White Home holding the primary two leaders’ summits with Japan and India, respectively. However there are variations to be resolved between the Trump administration’s nationwide safety and diplomacy appointees. They see China as an existential risk and Trump himself appears equally happy to return to a commerce take care of China as to confront it throughout all domains.
What issues now for the India-US relationship is discovering the areas on the margins of either side’ ambitions the place pursuits align. Past the instant considerations of defending the US home financial system by way of commerce restrictions and immigration sweeps, President Trump has ambitions to have the US trade lead in international improvement, particularly industrial improvement, and to backstop the decision of ongoing conflicts with US navy power and his private relationships.
India could think about find out how to make itself a key accomplice in each strains of effort with out eroding the non-alignment that has been a trademark of its international presence. The important thing will lie in layering India’s preferences onto the Trump administration’s actions. Motion on additional integrating Indian trade into high-tech provide chains, defining the Quad’s function within the area and the world, and utilizing India’s affect to maneuver the Ukraine conflict to a detailed and assist a secure steadiness of energy within the Center East can be not solely optimistic outcomes from the summit but in addition important to managing the areas of stress that may come up from a brand new US strategic lookout.
The author is Managing Director, ASPI, and Senior Fellow, Middle for China Evaluation.
