“A lesson is in not allowing ‘Summitry’ to overtake India’s broader interests” | Photo Credit: Getty Images via AFP

Alaskan winds, India and the Trump-Putin summit

The visible warmth in the Trump-Putin exchanges did not result in a less chilling American tone towards India; the lesson for New Delhi is that it would need to take a firmer stance if it wants to get back its agency

by · The Hindu

The “Alaska Moment” between United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 15, 2025 will translate to other objectives for Ukraine as Mr. Trump engages with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders, leading up to a possible trilateral summit in a quest for the end of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. For New Delhi, however, the Alaska Summit did not yield the clear-cut outcomes many had hoped for before the meeting between the leaders of two of India’s closest friends. Nor did it help the peculiar sense of vulnerability that Indian diplomacy faced, of having so much at stake in a meeting while having so little agency in its results.

Broadly, the Narendra Modi government had hoped that a U.S.-Russia rapprochement would take off some of the pressure from the U.S. India has felt over its ties with Russia. However, while there was a visible warmth in the Trump-Putin exchanges, this did not result in a less chilling tone that Mr. Trump has had towards India. He has been taking India to task on a number of issues.

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More specifically, hopes rose that the Alaska meeting would result in a rollback of the U.S.’s planned 25% secondary sanctions on India for buying Russian oil; the resumption of India-U.S. trade talks that Mr. Trump has held up over the Russia oil issue; and a subsequent revision of the 25% reciprocal tariffs already in place. In a severely-worded piece in the Financial Times (India’s oil lobby is funding Putin’s war machine — that has to stop), Peter Navarro, who is Mr. Trump’s Senior Counselor on Trade and Manufacturing, virtually dashed such hopes, making it clear that the double tariffs were a “two-pronged policy” by the U.S. to “hit India where it hurts”, for both the Russian imports and for its curbs on market access.

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No change in India policies

Nor was there any indicator that Mr. Trump would let up on the other pain point: his counter-narrative to the Modi government’s account of Operation Sindoor (May 7-10) and how the ceasefire was achieved. Not only did Mr. Trump repeat that he has mediated the India-Pakistan ceasefire, using trade as a leverage to corral both sides, but he now adds that a nuclear conflict would have followed as both sides were “shooting down airplanes”, a version at considerable odds from that of the Modi government, which has thus far conceded that it had no losses in the conflict.

Thus, the first takeaway from the Summit must be this: while Mr. Trump’s re-engagement and bonhomie with Mr. Putin may help Moscow, it does not mean a revision of his policies toward India. In any case, the rationale behind the secondary sanctions on India is dubious, and more about power games than about punishing Russia. The U.S. has itself increased its trade with Russia since Mr. Trump came to power and China imports of Russian oil have been consistently larger than India’s. Hitting India with sanctions while feting the Russian President and ignoring China’s actions seems to indicate that the reasons for the U.S.’s actions lie elsewhere. Many have suggested that Mr. Trump has acted out of pique — upset that Mr. Modi ignored his claims to have mediated with the Pakistanis. Reports suggested that Mr. Modi also rebuffed U.S. moves for him to sit down with the Pakistani leadership in Riyadh or in Washington, and that the Modi-Trump call on June 17 was extremely acrimonious and awkward as a result. Mr. Trump’s more obvious focus appears to be recognition for his peace-making efforts, and a possible Nobel Peace Prize, and the Modi government has already missed the bus to give him the credit for the Operation Sindoor ceasefire that Mr. Trump so clearly wants.

New Delhi must decide whether it wishes to jump through hoops for Washington, or whether it would be more sensible to step back and allow the Trump administration to do its worst before assessing a response and turn its energies to other parts of the world. There may be avenues to shore up India’s options on trade relationships with Mr. Modi’s upcoming visits to Japan and then to China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meet, a possible visit to the U.S. for the United Nations General Assembly, and then South Africa for the G-20 summit. There is also Mr. Putin’s visit to India soon. The bellwether event for India-U.S. ties will be the upcoming Quad Summit (India, U.S., Japan, Australia) that India is due to host later this year. It is still unclear whether Mr. Trump will visit India, especially if no India-U.S. trade deal is done by then, and whether the Indian government will be in any mood to roll out the red carpet.

Returning to substance

The second takeaway should be a lesson in not allowing “Summitry” to overtake India’s broader interests. For more than a decade, the “Modi mantra” of foreign policy has been about personal magic and chemistry, of dealing one-to-one with leaders of other countries, as his imprimatur on bilateral ties. As a result, visits abroad have been judged by the number of joint public appearances, handshakes and embraces as well as special honours and awards that are given to the Prime Minister, rather than the actual agreements and concessions between them. With China, however, the 18 one-on-one meetings between Mr. Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping between 2014-19 did not generate the requisite understanding to foresee Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s transgressions along the Line of Actual Control and the Galwan clashes.

With the U.S., too, Mr. Modi’s close engagements during the Trump 1.0 tenure (the ‘Howdy Modi’ rally in Texas in 2019 and the ‘Namaste Trump’ rally in Gujarat in 2020), as well as his early visit to Washington under the Trump 2.0 administration in February 2025 should have given the two leaders enough of an understanding of the other. Given the shocks that have followed, it may be time to turn back the focus to substance over style. But that substance becomes more difficult to seek in Trumpian times, given that most foreign policy decisions are being taken by Mr. Trump himself and a small ring around him in the White House, with few appointments being made on the desks that deal with India in the National Security Council or the State Department. In the ‘good times’ Delhi and Washington have worked well, even without a U.S. Ambassador in place in India. But at present, it is clear that a senior envoy with a keen knowledge of India as well as the U.S. President’s ear are necessary to navigate the turbulence in ties.

Maintain a political balance

The third lesson of the past few months is that India must reclaim bipartisanship in diplomatic relations, and build and maintain ties on both sides of the political spectrum, regardless of which party is in power. In the U.S., the Democratic party establishment was unhappy about the Trump-Modi rallies because they were held just months before the U.S. presidential election in 2020, and India had to spend some time, subsequently, repairing ties with the Joe Biden administration. Four years later, this annoyed Mr. Trump, the Republican contender, especially as he felt the contrast between the close personal bonhomie while he was in power and the fact that the Mr. Modi and his envoys did not spend time with him when he was out of power, including during the three times Mr. Modi travelled to the U.S., in 2021, 2023 and 2024, to hold talks with Mr. Biden. Closer home, this bipartisanship has been proven to trip up India’s ties in the neighbouring countries as well — Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Maldives.

Fourth, Mr. Trump’s penalties on India’s import of oil, after the U.S. allowed, even actively encouraged the purchases before, show how fickle the global power can be and how futile it is for India to forego its principles in order to please a particular regime. India’s time-honoured principle of only acceding to UN-mandated sanctions was broken in 2018 when the government bowed to Mr. Trump’s threats of sanctions against Iranian oil, and then Venezuelan oil, possibly emboldening him to demand the same against the use of Russian oil this time. By accepting such unreasonable orders, India does not just risk economic losses in foregoing cheaper oil. It also becomes complicit in the U.S.’s foreign policy objectives that do not necessarily align with India’s national interests. Conversely, when India resists such moves, it wins the support of others in the Global South. And while they object, western powers grudgingly accept India’s strategic autonomy in these matters.

Finally, New Delhi must consider measures and countermeasures to deal with U.S. actions that hurt India’s interests acutely — like the reciprocal and penalty tariffs that will make Indian goods far less competitive than those of its exporting rivals, curbs on U.S. manufacturing in India, or the remittance taxes on Indians working in the U.S. Getting back India’s agency will require a firmer stance — one that is not buffeted by the winds in Alaska, at a summit meeting thousands of kilometres away from India.