India, Once America’s Counterweight to China, Is Now Facing Trump’s Wrath

6 comments

1. Submission Statement:

   I think the last para really captures the significance of the substance of the article:

   “A war of words and tariffs is different, of course. But Indian and American cooperation around China is no longer something that anyone can count on.”

2. Well before the tariffs, when the US cozied up to Pakistan AGAIN, the seeds of mistrust had been laid.

   Honestly as a third party observer, when you see Ukraine head of state being insulted in front of the world to see, and then NATO partners and allies like South Korea and Japan being hamstrung with all these investments that need to be made in return for protection, how is this not seen as extortion.

   I agree that NATO partners except Poland need to pull their weight in terms of investment (min 3% of their GDPs) but sheesh this is literally the quickest way to lose friends, allies.

3. The US and India are the world’s two biggest democracies – in population, purchasing power and military strength. It makes us natural allies. India would have liked to have a strategic partnership with the US and be a counterweight to China. It has taken 25 years of diplomacy to get a bi-partisan consensus (in both countries) on the importance of the India-US relationship.

   Trump has undone all that with his misinformed and inappropriate tweets. He publicly insulted the leader of Ukraine. His tweets insult all Indians, irrespective of their political persuasion.

   It is easier for India to reach an understanding with China, than it is to figure out what Trump wants and what he will tweet next.

   Military cooperation with the US is an obvious way to counter China. However when we bought S-400 missiles from Russia (the US offered us no alternative) we were threatened with sanctions – which will be a reality with spares for every item of US equipment we buy. We ordered aircraft engines in 2021. The first two just arrived. We created our own satellite based GPS system, because the US denied us the tech.

   We should be sharing intel on terrorist camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan (which have targeted the US, as much as India) but we have Trump welcoming the Pak army chief to the White house – not the elected Prime minister, after the army chief appeared at a state funeral for US and UN proscribed terrorists and reiterated he will continue to support them. We should be sharing intel on the acoustic signatures of Chinese subs. Instead we are denied submarine tech – whereas Russia leased us nuclear submarines, to train our crews, until our own nuclear subs were ready to be deployed. We are eyeball to eyeball with the Chinese across our disputed Himalayan border. I would have assumed the US would have liked to have people embedded with our army units, to observe the latest Chinese hardware in field conditions. Instead we are tariffed at a higher rate than China.

   While we have an adversarial relationship with China and impose higher tariffs than we do on the US, the Chinese still export three times more to India ($120 billion a year) than the US. They do that although entire sectors of our economy are closed to the Chinese, but not the US.

4. So much for the plan of containing China.

   His supporters already had to justify his soft stance on Russia in the beginning of his term by saying China is a much bigger threat than Russia. Okay fine whatever, but India ? What would be their reason now ?

5. India as the counterweight to China? Lol please, if anything, it’s the other way around, India’s counter to China was the U.S.

6. why would India do America’s bidding against china? what did canada n japan n australia got for being america,s pets or allies? same treatment as foe

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