India-US strategic partnership needs a crucial redefinition

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's four-day, four-city trip has marked a new turning point in India's relations with the United States. How the government of India carries it forward will determine the future course of strategic partnership between the two countries.

The outcome of Rubio’s recent visit to India signals the need for a redefinition of the India-US strategic partnership. A partnership, which was built through consistent diplomatic exchanges and engagements and careful recalibration of mindsets, strategies and foreign policy goals, has been under stress from the early months of the second Trump administration. President Donald Trump has altered the patterns and terms of Washington’s engagements with the rest of the world, and, as a result, what we generally understand by the India-US strategic partnership will not be the same again.

Many watchers of India-US relations in India and abroad viewed Rubio's diplomatic mission to India as an effort of the Trump administration to repair the bilateral ties that had developed visible strains from early weeks of the second term of President Donald Trump in the White House.

However, Rubio's mission should be viewed as yet another step to move forward and strengthen India-US strategic partnership amidst unprecedented transformations that President Trump has been trying to bring about in the ways and means of conducting foreign relations and protecting his country's national security. The second Trump administration has overhauled the traditional US foreign policy goals and pattern of foreign engagements, and the newness in Trump's approach and methodology has upset the foreign policy community and stakeholders within the United States and in the rest of the world as well.

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While confronted with the issues of tariffs, India’s oil trade with Russia, Washington’s growing cosiness with Pakistan, and suggestions about a US-China G2 world, Marco Rubio pointed out that President Trump did not just target India and that his policies are aimed at global issues affecting US interests. This assertion is correct only to an extent. He categorically stated that “We have relations and we work at the tactical level, for example, and in many other ways with countries all over the world…I don’t view our relation with any country in the world as coming at the expense of our strategic alliance with India.” This statement is instructive. The use of the word “tactical” clarifies that the Trump administration emphasises tactical adjustments of relations more than strategic partnerships. His use of the term “strategic alliance” is interesting, because India does not see its relations with the US as a “strategic alliance”.

India must take due note of the Trump administration's altered views on time-tested regional “alliances”, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and bilateral alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and many other countries. President Trump has not only changed his views on the relevance of such alliances but has also passed harsh criticisms, offensive sarcasms and even unparliamentary remarks against US allies. India has never been a strategic ally of the United States, but the strategic partnership between India and the US built since the early 2000s has been regarded as one of the signature developments in the global geopolitical landscape. Yet, India was not spared; it received its own share of Trumpian criticisms that have hurt Indian sensitivities.

There were several predecessors of President Trump in American history who had at different times resorted to making unpalatable statements about India and Indian leaders. But they escaped popular scrutiny because they did not belong to the age of the information revolution and the power of social media. In fact, leaders of democratic countries have their own daily diet of unhealthy criticisms and offensive remarks. Nevertheless, leaders are expected to behave courteously towards foreign countries, and the use of a loose tongue can be unnecessarily costly for maintaining friendly and cooperative relations in the community of nations. In an era of public diplomacy, making statements that are derogatory for a country is unwise and inappropriate. For example, Trump's statements calling India a "dead economy" are not only factual fallacies but also something that was avoidable.

The government of India, as well as the Indian opposition political leaders, exhibited considerable maturity by maintaining restraint and not retaliating in kind against unfair and uncalled-for anti-India remarks by the US President and some of his cabinet members. What has been more concerning is Trump’s action on the ground. Secretary Rubio’s remarks that India has not been targeted are against the facts. India was singularly targeted by President Trump when he imposed a punitive tariff of twenty-five per cent on India for purchasing oil from Russia. It was ludicrous because President Trump around this time was himself reaching out to Russian President Vladimir Putin for bringing about detente in stressful US-Russian relations. It was also blatantly ironic that Trump said nothing and took no measures against China for buying the largest amount of Russian oil while seeking to punish a strategic partner of the United States!

Nonetheless, before Rubio’s visit to India, the tariff issue had been managed, a waiver had been given enabling India to buy oil from Russia, and a framework trade agreement had been announced. Marco Rubio's visit to India, thus, was an incremental step of the Trump administration to normalise relations with India. It has also been noted that Rubio’s India visit came close on the heels of a less-than-productive summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump. Signing of an agreement on critical minerals and securing its supply chain; rejuvenating the QUAD for ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific; and Trump's invitation to Prime Minister Modi to visit Washington, among other initiatives, such as the one on AI, are undoubtedly beneficial moves for a constructive partnership between the two countries.

There is no one who would opine against a robust India-US strategic partnership in areas of convergence. The bipartisan support for this relationship in the United States and consensus among Indian political parties in India for the same continue to exist. The fundamental changes in the current US administration's “tactical” outreach towards Pakistan and China, however, need to be noted, and India must recalibrate the width and depth of its strategic partnership with the United States.

Like the United States, India should also keep making “tactical” adjustments in its foreign relations and should completely keep the Pakistan and China factors out of its calculation of strategic partnership with the US. Said or unsaid, Indians generally expect the US to understand the sensitivities of Indian security concerns vis-à-vis China and Pakistan. Repeatedly, such expectations have been belied. Consequently, India should redefine the scope of its strategic partnership with the US and revise its expectations.

The unanswered question, nevertheless, is whether the Trump administration would stop expecting India to align its policy towards Russia, Iran or other countries with that of the US.

(The writer is founder chairperson, Kalinga Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies, and Editor, India Quarterly. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)