Trump’s tariff toolkit: Lose Bharat, strengthen China, shatter Pax Americana

Seven months into his second term, Donald Trump’s presidency is already threatening to upend the conventional world order. The former real estate mogul built his political brand on his refusal to play by conventional rules. Until recently, this approach seemed to have some method in its madness—a calculated chaos designed to keep his rivals off balance and extract concessions in negotiations.

But Trump’s latest tariff moves—especially imposing a 25 per cent tariff on exports from Bharat—have stripped away the façade of methodical unpredictability, exposing what many now see as unrestrained impulsiveness. In the process, Trump risks undoing years of careful, if uneven, progress in Bharat-US relations.

This is not just another trade dispute. It marks a deeper American failure to understand Bharat—not merely as an emerging economic power, but as a civilisational state with its unique worldview and long memory. By treating it as a pawn in a transactional game, Trump risks alienating the one partner that could have helped secure America’s long-term strategic interests in a rapidly changing world order.

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Limits of a Businessman-President

Trump’s leadership style has always mirrored his business persona. He is accustomed to look at every relationship as a zero-sum game, where one side has to lose for the other to win. He is pursuing the same policy in the ongoing tariff war: put maximum pressure, force submission, and claim victory.

In this narrow calculus, Bharat becomes just another “trading partner” to be coerced into submission. The 25 per cent tariff, therefore, is not only about correcting trade imbalances with Bharat; it is an attempt to showcase American dominance in the relationship. But this approach fundamentally misunderstands Bharat’s ethos and foreign policy DNA.

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Bharat doesn’t regard diplomacy as a business transaction. Its foreign policy is rooted in the country’s civilisational consciousness and colonial experience. No wonder, any attempt from an outside power to dictate terms through coercion triggers resistance, not compliance.

A Roller-Coaster Ride

The American discomfort with Bharat’s independent streak is not new. During the Cold War, successive US administrations grew frustrated with New Delhi’s refusal to align fully with the West. Washington often preferred authoritarian or Islamist regimes that were pliable, even unreliable, over a democratic Bharat. Pakistan’s military establishment, for all its instability, was seen as a more “manageable” partner than Bharat’s noisy democracy with its fiercely independent foreign policy.

As Seema Sirohi writes in Friends with Benefits, the Bharat-US relationship has been about “a thousand heartbreaks and a hundred reunions… a story of inching closer, drifting apart, trying again, getting disappointed, developing new stakes in each other, losing interest, recharging batteries, giving it another shot, succeeding partly, celebrating with high rhetoric, hiding disappointment but strategically leaking true feelings while continuously rebranding the relationship as larger, deeper, and wider, and strengthening the foundation.”

Since the early 2000s, however, US administrations—starting with George W Bush—consciously reached out to Delhi, recognising its importance in balancing China’s rise. Barack Obama, despite ideological differences, continued to invest in US-Bharat ties. Trump’s first term continued this trajectory, with high-profile summits and public bonhomie between leaders of the two countries.

Trump’s second-term tariff war has brought that optimism to a grinding halt, though one could sense its beginnings during the Joe Biden era. At a time when Washington should be cementing alliances in the Indo-Pacific to counter China’s assertiveness, it is instead alienating its most natural partner. Worse, this follows another strategic misstep: alienating Russia through Nato’s eastward expansion, thereby pushing Moscow closer to Beijing. With both Russia and Bharat drifting away, America’s much-vaunted Indo-Pacific strategy now looks increasingly fragile.

Sindoor and Shifting Perception

Recent events have further complicated Washington’s calculus. Operation Sindoor—a swift and decisive military action by Bharat—demonstrated capabilities that few believed New Delhi possessed. Within three days, Bharat achieved what many believed was impossible against a nuclear-armed adversary. This single event forced both allies and rivals to reassess the country’s military transformation.

The US had been wary of rising Bharat for a while, but until Op Sindoor, its concern was largely economic—as was the case during the Biden era. Operation Sindoor brought Bharat’s military transformation to the forefront. It signalled that the country was no longer just a counterweight to China but a potential independent pole in global geopolitics. This possibility has alarmed a power-driven West accustomed to using Delhi as a pawn in its broader game against Beijing. If Bharat grows too strong—economically and militarily—it will no longer be a tool of American strategy but a peer competitor shaping a multipolar world order.

Trump’s tariffs, therefore, can be read as much about “making America great again” as about slowing Bharat’s rise. A $10 trillion Indian economy within a decade, with established military might, would fundamentally alter global power dynamics, giving New Delhi too much leverage for Washington’s liking. Yet, this approach is self-defeating.

Unlike China, whose ultimate objective is to displace the US as a sole superpower, Bharat seeks coexistence. America’s inability to embrace this vision of shared power could cost it a valuable ally at a time when its own global leadership is under strain.

A Self-Inflicted Strategic Loss

Trump’s continuing diatribe against Bharat reflects an enduring inability in the United States to accept partners that do not fit into America’s hierarchical worldview. Delhi’s insistence on a multipolar order, where no single nation dominates, challenges the very foundations of strategic thinking in Washington, DC.

Bharat does not pursue anti-Americanism. It does not even want to undermine US power/position. Rather, its worldview—rooted in Sanatani philosophy—seeks coexistence, both in socio-spiritual life as well as in international politics. It prefers a multipolar world. By failing to understand this nuance, Washington often mistakes Delhi’s independence for defiance, leading to cycles of friendships and break-ups.

By treating Bharat as a junior partner that has to be bullied, Trump risks a rupture that could last beyond his presidency. Bharat does not quite appreciate attempts to compromise its sovereignty. And unlike Pakistan or other US client states, it cannot be bought off with aid packages or military hardware.

Conclusion

Trump’s tariff war represents a classic case of winning battles while losing the war. The immediate goal—extracting better trade terms—may or may not be achieved. But the long-term damage to US-Bharat relations is already evident. Trust has been eroded. Doubts about American intentions have resurfaced. With this, Trump has handed Beijing a strategic victory without China firing a single shot.

In a world reshaped by rising powers, America may find that the real cost of its tariffs is not measured in dollars but in lost alliances and diminished influence. Trump may, in the short term, earn a few extra dollars for the US, but in the long term, he risks putting the very idea of Pax-Americana on sale.

China’s Xi Jinping must be the only person laughing right now.

Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.