By Imran Khurshid, PhD
India will not “bow down” and will focus on capturing new markets, trade minister Piyush Goyal said in his first public remarks since the US imposed punishing tariffs on Indian goods.
The 50-percent levies on many Indian imports into the United States took effect this week as punishment for New Delhi’s massive purchases of Russian oil, part of US efforts to pressure Moscow into ending its war in Ukraine.
Speaking at a construction industry event in New Delhi on Friday, Goyal said India was “always ready if anyone wants to have a free trade agreement with us”.
But, he added, India “will neither bow down nor ever appear weak”.
“We will continue to move together and capture new markets.”
U.S. Risks Undermining Its Own Strategic Goals
Donald Trump recently imposed an additional 25 percent tariff on India—raising it to 50 percent—while exempting and even praising President Xi Jinping and describing U.S.–China ties as a “much better relationship” than under Biden, noting that Xi had invited him to visit China.
This sharp contrast underscores how Trump is courting Beijing while penalizing New Delhi. Yet, New Delhi remains focused on advancing the enduring strategic objectives of its partnership with the United States, most visibly through the Quad.
As India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri recently underlined, in the context of the Quad leaders’ summit to be held in India this year, “the grouping continues to be an important platform for promoting peace, stability, prosperity, and development in the Indo-Pacific region.”
He noted that the Quad has steadily broadened its scope to cover cooperation in health security, critical and emerging technologies, resilient supply chains, infrastructure development, and critical minerals.
Misri’s remarks indicate that despite trade frictions and political headwinds with Washington, New Delhi is determined to sustain and expand its engagement with the Quad partners in pursuit of shared strategic objectives.
A Strategic Logic Beyond Leaders
Although there has been turbulence in the relationship due to Trump’s personal style of politics, the defense partnership between the two countries has remained steady.
In September this year, India and the U.S. will conduct the 21st edition of their annual joint military exercise, Yudh Abhyas 2025, in Alaska from September 1 to 14. The two countries conduct more military exercises with each other than with any other partner outside NATO, underscoring the depth of operational cooperation.
Defense sales to India have also picked up again this year, with pending deals on Javelin missiles, Stryker combat vehicles, and additional P-8I maritime patrol aircraft moving forward, alongside new co-production projects.
A fresh 10-year defense framework is also being finalized to anchor long-term cooperation. Multiple mechanisms of cooperation and working groups continue to facilitate the relationship, ensuring continuity in areas such as technology transfers, defense hardware sales, and joint initiatives.
While temporary frictions—such as tariffs imposed by the Trump administration—have created hurdles, the broader trajectory of the India–U.S. partnership remains intact and robust.
It is essential to recall that past U.S. administrations—those of Bill Clinton’s second term, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama—invested heavily in cultivating India as a strategic partner.
They were not acting out of naïveté, but rather out of recognition of a larger geopolitical and geostrategic logic. Trump’s later transactional, short-term approach to geopolitics—focusing narrowly on tariffs and trade deals—undermines this long-term vision.
Misplaced Debates On Taiwan Contingency
Another factor that has complicated perceptions of India–US ties is the discourse created by certain influential strategic commentators in the United States.
Analysts such as Ashley Tellis, through writings like his Foreign Affairs articles “America’s Bad Bet on India” and “India’s Great-Power Delusions”, have often framed India’s rise as a “strategic bet” in the Indo-Pacific, with repeated emphasis on hypothetical scenarios—such as how India might respond to a Taiwan contingency.
By holding the relationship hostage to such future contingencies, these arguments not only took a limited view of the partnership but also shaped the strategic behaviour of U.S. foreign policy in ways that damaged ties with New Delhi.
Their constant debates about whether India would or would not support U.S. military action against China in the South China Sea or Taiwan Strait created negative perceptions within Washington’s policy circles, reducing the relationship to external variables and unrealistic expectations.
They did not understand that India–US ties extend far beyond a futuristic Taiwan crisis: India’s democratic rise, its economic potential, and its central role in the Indian Ocean region give it intrinsic strategic value.
These experts should have been more cautious and realistic, because their writings in influential platforms like Foreign Affairs helped create a distorted mood in the U.S. strategic establishment, shaping its foreign policy behaviour towards India, which did great disservice to this relationship
In reality, India’s rise is itself in the long-term interest of the United States, rather than making this relationship contingent on external variables. India’s democratic rise, in contrast to China’s authoritarian expansion, strengthens the free world.
As Nikki Haley recently warned,“that losing India would be a “strategic disaster,” urging Washington to treat India as a “prized free and democratic partner” rather than an adversary like China—with the added advantage that India “could help Washington shift critical supply chains away from China in the near term.” Structurally, India’s very rise serves U.S. national interests.
Moreover, Ambassador Nicholas Burns cautioned that “It would be a great mistake if America … treated India and Pakistan equally,” highlighting that U.S. confidence in India is far stronger—a reflection of Indian democratic values and strategic alignment.
To push India away would therefore not only be strategically foolish but counterproductive—risking closer India–Russia–China cooperation, strengthening BRICS, and weakening U.S. influence in the region. As former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton cautioned, Trump’s tariffs on India “could undo decades of American efforts to bring India away from Russia and China.”
Today, platforms like BRICS and SCO have not become overtly anti-West precisely because of India’s balancing role. If alienated, these groupings could evolve into explicitly anti-Western blocs, fulfilling precisely the scenario U.S. strategy has long sought to prevent.
The depth of India–U.S. cooperation spans defense, technology, space, and critical emerging sectors. Major defense agreements have already been signed, with more in the pipeline. India is procuring GE engines from the U.S., with GE recently committing to deliver two F404-IN20 engines per month until March 2026.
Collaborations in space and emerging technologies are also advancing under the U.S.–India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET), which facilitates cooperation in semiconductors, AI, quantum technologies, and defense supply chains. The launch of INDUS-X in 2023 has further strengthened innovation partnerships between the public and private sectors of both countries.
After a long gap, Washington has also nominated Sergio Gor as a full-time ambassador to New Delhi, reaffirming its diplomatic commitment. Most recently, Indian Air Force Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla flew aboard NASA’s Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station—conducting over 60 experiments and marking India’s first presence on the ISS in over four decades—highlighting the progress of U.S.–India space cooperation.
However, supply chain diversification, a critical pillar of strategic cooperation, has received limited attention amid Washington’s current efforts to court China. With global production still heavily concentrated in Beijing, U.S. engagement on this front remains inconsistent, leaving both economic and strategic vulnerabilities unaddressed.
For India, this underscores the imperative of building resilient, long-term partnerships beyond China, while also highlighting the gap between strategic rhetoric and action in U.S. policy toward supply chain resilience.
The Indo-Pacific Logic
Without India, there can be no Indo-Pacific strategy. The “Indo” in the Indo-Pacific stems directly from India’s geography and centrality to the region. India’s strategic location—straddling the Himalayas, the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, and the Bay of Bengal—makes it indispensable to any serious U.S. strategy.
Its Andaman and Nicobar Islands lie close to the Strait of Malacca, a critical chokepoint through which over 94,000 vessels pass annually, carrying about a quarter of global trade, including seaborne oil shipments. If China were to dominate the Indian Ocean, the entire U.S. Indo-Pacific framework could unravel.
India is also a rising economic power, poised to become the world’s third-largest economy within this decade. Combined with its contested border with China, these realities give India both the incentive and the capability to remain an indispensable partner for Washington.
This is why American strategists—including lawmakers like Rep. Mike Lawler, who recently called India “one of the most critical nations for U.S. security interests in the coming decade”—see neglecting India as a major foreign policy blunder.
Moreover, the criticism of India’s Russian oil purchases must also be viewed in context. It was Washington itself that designed the price cap mechanism, enabling India to purchase discounted Russian oil while maintaining market stability.
Singling out India while ignoring China—the largest buyer—sends a negative signal to allies and partners. Instead, the U.S. must recognize that India’s pragmatic energy choices are not an abandonment of shared strategic goals but a necessity of economic survival.
Conclusion
India–US relations are not hostage to tariffs, tweets, or tactical frictions. They rest on structural imperatives that ensure continuity beyond leadership changes or temporary turbulence. For India, this partnership brings technological depth, strategic balance, and global leverage; for the U.S., it secures the Indo-Pacific and strengthens its global role.
Yet, by courting Beijing while penalizing New Delhi, Washington has sent a disquieting signal — as if India were a rival to be constrained and China a partner to be embraced. Such mixed messages amount to an inadvertent betrayal, undermining trust and weakening America’s image as a dependable ally.
In trying to hedge, the U.S. risks eroding the very strategic partnership it claims to value. India, however, continues to pursue its larger regional objectives with clarity and steadiness, even as it quietly takes note of Washington’s wavering resolve.
- Dr. Imran Khurshid is an Associate Research Fellow at the International Centre for Peace Studies (ICPS), New Delhi. He specializes in India-US relations, Indo-Pacific studies, and South Asian security issues.
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