Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited New Delhi this week to reassure India of its importance, but analysts mostly saw the trip as little more than a salve applied to deep wounds inflicted by the Trump administration\u2019s policies on trade and immigration, and the war in Iran.<\/p>\n
President Trump\u2019s blow-hot, blow-cold approach to India is a stark contrast from that of previous U.S. presidents, who sought to maintain good relations with India. India needs civil and stable ties with the United States, its biggest export market, and doesn\u2019t want to attract the ire of Mr. Trump, which could disrupt its economy or jeopardize its ability to meet its enormous energy needs.<\/p>\n
India, which imports 90 percent of its crude oil, had come under pressure last summer after Mr. Trump slapped a punitive 25 percent tariff on India for buying Russian oil. It was lifted in February after India agreed to limit purchases of Russian oil. The Iran war and closure of the Strait of Hormuz also greatly reduced India\u2019s access to oil, prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ask his fellow Indians to work from home to save fuel.<\/p>\n
The main issue is a \u201clack of consistency that we have seen in the Trump administration\u2019s engagement with India and a lack of a public commitment to this relationship,\u201d said Harsh V. Pant, a visiting professor of international relations at King\u2019s College London.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump has upended many of India\u2019s assumptions about the nature of its relationship with the United States: The bedrock was an economic partnership, with a marginal role for Pakistan and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region. Mr. Trump\u2019s tariffs, his close relationship with Pakistan\u2019s leaders and his seeming desire to cultivate stronger ties with China have called all of those assumptions into question.<\/p>\n
That has left India without a framework for engagement, Mr. Pant said.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump\u2019s recent meeting with President Xi Jinping of China has added to India\u2019s worries about its place in U.S. foreign policy. Several U.S. administrations maintained ties with India, the world\u2019s most populous country and one of its fastest-growing economies, because they saw it as a counterweight to China. India was happy to play that role, especially under Mr. Modi, who had cultivated a close relationship with Mr. Trump in his first term in office.<\/p>\n
India is concerned that it would lose its value to the United States and become dispensable once the U.S. relationship with China stabilizes, said Constantino Xavier, an expert on South Asia at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, a research institute based in New Delhi.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi\u2019s meeting might not lead to anything, Mr. Xavier said, but it has made Indian officials anxious about becoming the U.S. president\u2019s \u201cbackup plan,\u201d to be used as a tool to threaten China when he wants. \u201cThe dispensability is increasing, and the utility is decreasing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr. Rubio insisted during his visit that India was one of America\u2019s \u201cmost strategic partners in the world.\u201d Mr. Trump joined Mr. Rubio in doling out praise, dialing in live at a reception in New Delhi on Sunday to call Mr. Modi a \u201cgreat friend,\u201d and reassure India it could count on him.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd anything India wants, they get,\u201d Mr. Trump said.<\/p>\n
Many Indians say they are getting the opposite of what they want. Its students and workers have been hurt by the Trump administration\u2019s immigration restrictions. Mr. Rubio defended the policies at a news conference, insisting that they are \u201cnot a policy targeted at Indians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond the reassuring talk, analysts said, it\u2019s been hard to distill what India secured from America from Mr. Rubio\u2019s visit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe visit was a good painkiller, but some real medicine is needed to revive the relations,\u201d Dr. Xavier said. That medicine would involve a \u201cfundamental political reset between both leaders,\u201d he added, such as a visit by Mr. Trump to India or significant breakthroughs in trade and defense deals.<\/p>\n
The two sides did sign a framework agreement to cooperate closely on securing supplies of critical minerals. And India\u2019s commerce ministry said on Wednesday that a U.S. delegation will visit India for another round of trade talks.<\/p>\n
In a measure of its concerns about its relationship with Washington, India has struck several partnerships with other countries, including the European Union trading bloc.<\/p>\n
The last day of Mr. Rubio\u2019s visit was dedicated to discussing the Quad, a group of four countries \u2014 the United States, India, Japan and Australia \u2014 intended to build maritime cooperation and ensure safe routes for commerce in the Indo-Pacific. Although it was never explicitly stated, one of the Quad\u2019s main goals was to be a check on China\u2019s influence in the region.<\/p>\n
Not much appeared to materialize from this week\u2019s daylong Quad summit. Analysts said that the group can only be functional if the United States remains an active participant. With Mr. Trump focused on his priorities in China, his level of interest in the Quad is unclear.<\/p>\n
Pragati K.B. contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited New Delhi this week to reassure India of its importance, but analysts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[121],"tags":[13624,13458,27854,6620,186,14290,46677,6626,74,13623,8970],"class_list":["post-94044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-marco-rubio","tag-donald-j","tag-foreign-workers","tag-immigration-and-emigration","tag-marco","tag-marco-rubio","tag-modi","tag-narendra","tag-rubio","tag-trump","tag-united-states-international-relations","tag-xi-jinping"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116668701196647106","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}