With Trump's 50% tariffs, are India-US ties at their lowest point?

Much has been written about the relationship between US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Things were off to a great start earlier this year with Modi visiting America just weeks after Trump took office yet again.

However, things have changed drastically.

Trump has imposed tariffs of 50 per cent on India for buying Russian oil. He has also taken to social media to rail about India being a ‘dead economy’. He has also threatened to add an additional 10 per cent tariff for India’s membership in Brics.

India has called the moves “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable”. It has vowed to take actions necessary to protect its national interests. But are India and US ties at their worst point ever?

Let’s take a closer look

Nehru’s disastrous visit to the US

The US and India have enjoyed warm ties for decades. But this wasn’t always the case. The first low in ties was right out of the gate. India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1949, just two years after the country got its independence, visited the United States.  The trip was widely seen as a complete disaster and arguably set the stage for years of turmoil and misunderstandings.

Though the phrase ‘non-alignment’ would not be coined until years later, Nehru quickly proved himself unwilling to align with the Americans against the Soviets despite then US Ambassador Henry F Grady urged Nehru to “get on the democratic side immediately.”

Nehru also dismissed any notion of the US mediating in the Kashmir issue. US historian Dennis Merrill summed up the tour. “Awkward incidents and gaffes plagued the tour. The occasional flaunting of American wealth particularly offended Nehru. At one luncheon with businessmen in New York, he took offence when the man seated next to him pointed around the table and boasted that the combined party represented a net worth of $20 billion.”

The 1971 war

During India’s 1971 war with Pakistan, was United States was firmly on Islamabad’s side. India, meanwhile, was allied with the Soviet Union – an arch-rival of America.

The US sent the USS Enterprise carrier group, which had been stationed in Vietnam, to Sri Lanka. This was an indication Both to India and Russia that the US would be willing to intercede on Narrow in 1949 Pakistan’s behalf. However, the threat of the Soviet Union kept the US from intervening. India defeated Pakistan and Bangladesh was created.

But more and more information about that period and the US’ attitude towards India has come to light in recent years. Declassified documents show that President Richard Nixon, who had visited Pakistan in 1969, and his top adviser Henry Kissinger in fact broke US laws to shovel arms and equipment to Islamabad via third countries like Jordan.

Tapes also revealed a deep antipathy on the part of both Nixon and Kissinger towards then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Indians. Nixon called Indira an “old witch”, while Kissinger referred to her as “a bitch.” Kissinger further claimed “Indians are bastards anyway” while Nixon claimed Indians were “most sexless” and “pathetic”. Kissinger in later years apologised for the remarks and claimed they had to be seen within the context of the Cold War.

1998 nuclear tests and sanctions

The next low between India and the US came more than two decades later – in 1998. By now, US President Bill Clinton was in his second term.

India in May 1998, under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee administration, conducted a series of underground nuclear tests in Rajasthan’s Pokhran. The five detonations over three days were codenamed ‘Operation Shakti’.

While India had already carried out tests in 1974 under Indira, the Vajpayee government took it a step further, declaring that India was a nuclear power and at the age of nuclear apartheid had ended.

Across the border Pakistan quickly followed suit. The US reacted badly to these developments with Clinton cutting off all aid to India barring those for humanitarian reasons and halting the sale of weapons to India.

Ironically, the US and India in the years between the two crises had taken some steps to mend things. It was then First Lady Hilary Clinton who opened her husband’s eyes towards the promise that India held.

Things improved after the US and India announced they had signed a civilian nuclear deal. However, despite Modi’s bonhomie with Trump during his first term and then the Biden regime , cracks have appeared over the years.

US claims to have foiled India assassination plot

In late 2023, India-US ties hit a low after Washington announced it had foiled a plot with Indian links to kill a Sikh separatist leader on US soil.

The US has charged Nikhil Gupta, with murder-for-hire in connection with his with his participation in a foiled plot to assassinate a US citizen in New York City.

The target was said to be banned Sikhs for Justice chief Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

Pannun, who holds dual US and Canadian citizenship, is a New York-based Sikh secessionist leader who advocates for the creation of Khalistan.

Gupta was accused of hiring a hitman to kill Pannun. He faces 20 years in jail. New Delhi has denied any official connection to the plot.

Trump’s claims of mediation, Indians deported

Trump’s claims that he intervened during Operation Sindoor to make peace between India and Pakistan also sparked tensions.

Trump claimed he used the threat of trade deals with both leaders of India and Pakistan to bring a halt to the conflict – which the opposition in India has pounced on to deride Modi and the government.

However, India has repeatedly dismissed this claim and insisted on multiple occasions that no third party mediation occurred. Modi in Parliament recently said India agreed to call a halt to hostilities after Pakistan begged for a ceasefire.

In February,  images of Indians deported by the US on military planes, their hands and legs shackled, horrified the country just days before Modi went to see Trump.

Reports that the detainees had been ill-treated on the flight further inflamed passions.

What do experts say?

Some say this is possibly the worst crisis since 1998.

“US-India relations are at the lowest point in decades,” Biswajit Dhar, a trade economist who has worked on several Indian trade deals, told Al Jazeera.

Others think this is simply a pressure tactic.

“We’re seeing Trump continuing to ratchet up his pressure tactics, trying to cut Russia off from its most important oil buyers by penalising them for doing business with Moscow,” Washington-based South Asia analyst Michael Kugelman told BBC.  “Trump is unapologetically transactional and commercial in his approach to foreign policy. He has no compunction about deploying these potentially alienating harsh tactics against a close US partner like India.”

Kugelman warned that it could take some time to repair the relationship and restore it to even ground.

Still others are more optimistic.

Jitendra Nath Misra, a former Indian ambassador and now a professor at OP Jindal Global University, added, “I think the fundamentals of the relationship are not weak. It’s a paradox that the day Trump announced 25% tariffs and unspecified penalties, India and the US collaborated in a strategic area when an Indian rocket sent a jointly-developed satellite into space”.

But India isn’t waiting. New Delhi is already making moves.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to visit New Delhi this year. On Tuesday, Russia said the two countries had discussed further strengthening defence cooperation “in the form of a particularly privileged strategic partnership.”

India has also boosted engagement with China, a change after years of tensions following a deadly border clash in 2020. Modi is set to visit China soon for the first time since 2018.

“Russia will attempt to exploit the rift between the US and India by proposing the restoration of the Russia-India-China trilateral and new projects in defence,” said analyst Aleksei Zakharov at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.

“India will undoubtedly be mindful of structural factors such as sanctions against Russia and will seek to find a compromise with the Trump administration.”

With inputs from agencies