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C. Uday Bhaskar

The India-US bilateral relationship is likely to be reviewed at summit level after US President Donald Trump invites Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the White House for a visit next week. Trade tariffs and immigration will be on the top of the list, and the first batch of deported immigrants have returned to India.
Soon after Trump assumed office, the two leaders had a telephone conversation which was described as “productive”. Trump sought a move towards a “fair bilateral trading relationship” and emphasised the importance of India increasing its purchases of US-made security equipment.
The read-out also added that “both leaders emphasised their commitment to advance the US-India strategic partnership and the Indo-Pacific Quad partnership, with India hosting Quad leaders for the first time later this year”.
The US is India’s largest trading partner. Two-way trade in 2023-24 was worth US$118 billion, with India having a surplus of US$32 billion. Trump had earlier described China, India and Brazil as “tremendous tariff-makers”, and in his first term he urged Modi to lift tariffs on the US-made Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
In a signal to Washington, the annual budget presented in New Delhi on February 1 announced major cuts to import tariffs including for high-end motorcycles. Senior officials in the Ministry of Finance claimed that India wants to shed the image of being a protectionist nation and that it is not a “tariff king”.
While the new and disruptive Trump-triggered trade tariffs and related protocols are an issue with which every major trading partner of the US – including China – is grappling, the more complex dilemma for Delhi is in the security-strategic domain.


The improvement in the India-US relationship is of recent vintage. During the latter part of the Cold War, India was an “estranged democracy” in the US strategic framework and placed under severe technological sanctions. At that time China was in the US camp as part of the American containment strategy, while Delhi entered into a friendship treaty with the former Soviet Union.
Fast forward to 2005 and the US made a radical departure to engage with India and bring it into the global nuclear tent, much to China’s chagrin. Soon after, the US-India relationship moved to one of strategic partnership, particularly in the maritime domain.
The partnership has been formalised under the four-member Quad grouping of the US, India, Australia and Japan. Quad deliberations were elevated to summit level in 2021, and Trump is expected to visit India when Modi hosts the next summit.
It is instructive that the first Quad ministerial meeting of the second Trump administration took place a day after the new president was sworn in. The joint statement from the meeting in Washington was short but had some important departures from previous formulations.

While the Quad leaders’ summit then-US President Joe Biden hosted in September 2024 ended with a detailed joint statement of almost 5,700 words, last month’s joint statement by Quad foreign ministers was just 161 words and laid the foundation for this year’s leaders’ summit. The shift in emphasis is instructive and will nudge India in a direction it has been hesitant to take – namely to impart the Quad with greater military muscle.
Reiterating the shared commitment to strengthening a free and open Indo-Pacific is par for the course since the Quad came into being, and the subtext of the phrase points to China. However, the 2025 statement is explicit in adding that this shared commitment extends to ensuring that “the rule of law, democratic values, sovereignty and territorial integrity are upheld and defended”.
To what degree will the Quad acquire a greater collective military profile in a second Trump administration which will actively defend its principles and seek to compel China to accept a free and open Indo-Pacific? This will be at the core of the 2025 leaders’ summit, and the challenge for India will be the transmutation from being a strategic partner of the US to a hesitant member of a quasi-military group. Japan and Australia, the other Quad nations, are already formal military allies with the US.
While China has long been a strategic challenge for India and the border dispute between the two nations shows no sign of moving towards a resolution, Delhi remains reluctant to be part of any military alliance. Hence the emphasis that the Quad is not directed at any single nation (read China) and that it is not an Asian Nato.




As a result, Delhi has an anomalous politico-strategic profile as a country that is part of both the Quad and the Brics grouping of developing nations. India’s total bilateral trade with China reached US$118.4 billion in 2024, similar to its trade with the US, but while unlike its trade surplus with the US it has an US$85 billion trade deficit with China.
As a result, the challenge for Delhi will be to maintain a stable, working relationship with both Beijing and Washington even as it heavily depends on Russia for its security purchases. Trump is keen for India to buy more US-made military equipment, and the Modi visit could provide impetus for some major arms deals to take place.
India is seeking a supplier for nuclear-powered submarines, and the current options are Russia and France. The US has been reluctant to consider this platform for India, but if the Modi visit enables such an opportunity it would add content to the strategic contours of the India-US relationship as well as infuse the Quad with much greater deterrent capability in the Indo-Pacific. That would give China great cause for concern.


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A Modi-Trump summit could weave greater security ties into the India-US relationship and give the Quad a more militaristic aspect


A Modi-Trump summit could weave greater security ties into the India-US relationship and give the Quad a more militaristic aspect.


US-India relations

Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (The Quad)

Diplomacy

China-India relations

Narendra Modi

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


How Modi’s US visit could add to China’s growing list of worries

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}A Modi-Trump summit could weave greater security ties into the India-US relationship and give the Quad a more militaristic aspect

A Modi-Trump summit could weave greater security ties into the India-US relationship and give the Quad a more militaristic aspect