Prabhu Chawla
INTRO: The US needs India more than the other way around because American strategic interests are uniquely served by India’s vast and youthful market, strategic position in the Indo-Pacific and rare political stability
Great nations rarely fall to foreign invasion. They corrode from within – when vanity overtakes vision and bluster replaces balance. That is the story unfolding in Washington, where Donald Trump, once again armed with his rhetoric of revival, is turning America’s biggest democratic ally into a rhetorical punching bag. His new confrontation with India is not strategic audacity. It is a geopolitical folly.
Ever since his return to the White House, Trump has come back with his old instincts sharper and allies wearier. He sees diplomacy as a performance, not a partnership; deals as domination, not dialogue. Instead of rebuilding America’s network of allies, he is dismantling it, one tariff and one insult at a time. Yet, in going after India, Trump has chosen an adversary he cannot intimidate.
India is not a junior partner waiting for approval from Washington. It is a civilisational power, anchored in political stability, institutional maturity and economic resilience. The notion that Trump can browbeat such a nation into compliance reveals how outdated his imagination truly is. The current spiral began with a petty accusation dressed up as policy.
Last week, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick made extraordinary remarks on the All-In podcast. He claimed that a major trade deal with India had collapsed not because of policy differences, but because Prime Minister Narendra Modi had “refused to call President Trump” at an opportune moment. “I set the deal up,” Lutnick declared, “and Modi was meant to call. India did not call. So the deal fell apart.”
It was diplomacy reduced to schoolyard drama. Lutnick portrayed diplomacy as though it were a courtly ritual in which leaders must bow to secure favour. According to him, India had been given three chances in 2025 to complete the agreement, before the United States turned to other Asian nations like Vietnam and Indonesia. The narrative was clearly meant to humiliate New Delhi. The message was loud and clear. Proximity to Trump’s ego, not parity of interest, determines access to Washington’s trade benefits.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs, however, demolished this spin with facts. Within hours, official spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal clarified that Modi and Trump had spoken eight times in 2025, covering trade, technology, and global security. “The way this has been described is inaccurate,” The deal stalled not because of failed phone etiquette but because of Washington’s fluctuating conditions and Trump’s obsession with personal validation.
That principle just can’t be accepted by the new India – self-reliant, confident and unwilling to be dragged into narrow geopolitical games. But Trump pushed further. In late 2025, riding on bipartisan nationalism, he signed the Sanctioning Russia Act, threatening extreme tariffs up to 500 per cent on countries that continued purchases of Russian energy including oil, gas and uranium. It was a blunt instrument aimed at India, China and Brazil under the pretence of “starving Moscow of resources”.
India has refused to blink. New Delhi’s calm defiance exposed the hollowness of Trump’s strategy. He mistook coercion for influence, forgetting that power today is not about pressure. It is about partnership.
Withdrawal from ISA
Trump’s retreat from global platforms has made matters worse. On January 7, he ordered the United States to withdraw from the International Solar Alliance. It’s one of India’s proudest multilateral initiatives, launched with France in 2015 to promote renewable energy for developing countries. Yet, the exit hardly slowed the project. India filled the void with funding from Japan, the European Union and the African Development Bank. America’s retreat only underlined India’s ascent as a dependable leader of the global energy transition.
What makes Trump’s India obsession more incoherent is the way he treats adversaries differently. He has repeatedly claimed, falsely, that he personally halted “a war between India and Pakistan”, a statement refuted by both governments. He repeats this myth on rally stages as proof of his diplomatic genius, as if India owes him a debt of gratitude.
Meanwhile, his outreach to Pakistan’s military leadership and the economic aid extended to Dhaka’s new government has signalled an unsettling tilt against India’s regional interests. By bending towards China and battering India, Trump is in effect eroding the strategic axis that can restrain Beijing’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific. In alienating India, Trump handicaps America’s own ability to expand its influence in Asia’s geopolitically-charged waters.
Demographic stagnation
This is where the equation turns unmistakably against him. The United States, for all its economic size, is facing strategic overstretch and demographic stagnation. India, on the other hand, is a rising continental power positioned at the crossroads of the Indian Ocean, capable of stabilising sea lanes and insulating global commerce from Beijing’s coercive maritime designs. Its market of 1.4 billion consumers provides the demand scale that sustains global innovation and manufacturing growth. Every major American technology company – Apple, Google, Amazon, Tesla – depends on Indian software architects, consumers and talent flows to keep its future alive. The geopolitical reality is simple: without India, America cannot sustain its competitive edge.
If Trump truly wishes to make America great again, he must first make America wise again. Wisdom means recognising that the 21st century’s balance of power depends on cooperation with nations that combine democratic values with demographic vitality. And there is no partner that fits this profile better than India.
Three priceless assets
New Delhi offers Washington three priceless assets: a vast and youthful market that sustains corporate ambition, a strategic geography that buffers the Indo-Pacific from Chinese hegemony, and a political stability that most major democracies now envy. America’s future greatness depends on the strength and equality of its partnerships, not on the loudness of its commands. India represents that future – confident, collaborative, and consequential.
If Washington chooses confrontation, it will isolate itself from the very power most capable of balancing China and ensuring a stable Asia. But if it chooses cooperation with India, it has a chance to renew its global relevance and moral leadership. The choice is Trump’s to make, but the consequences will belong to America. Because in 2026, one truth stands taller than any rhetoric: the United States needs India far more than India needs the United States. The sooner Washington accepts this, the sooner both nations can take their rightful places as partners and not as rivals in shaping a sane and sustainable world order.
