Last few months witnessed concerns being expressed from certain quarters in India over the reports of US President Donald Trump’s claim that it is he who had mediated a ceasefire between India and Pakistan to put an abrupt end to the ongoing military face-off and possible nuclear conflagration between the two following the Pahalgam massacre. There were also reports as to President Trump’s offer to mediate the Kashmir issue. India had to intervene to make it clear to its public that it was New Delhi that directly responded to Islamabad’s call for a ceasefire and there would be no third party involvement on Kashmir issue. President Trump administration’s (2.0) allocation of funds for Pakistan’s F-16 fleet maintenance, its insistence on reciprocity, removal of restrictions and concessions in certain areas of trade from India and its indications to see New Delhi increase its defense purchases and enlarge volumes of imports of natural gas and oil from the US as conditions if it has to receive any future concessions from Washington point to a shift in the Indo-US strategic relationship that is happening under a transactional Trump administration 2.0. Just to indicate that it treats India and Pakistan equally in their own terms, the US government has recently designated The Resistance Front (TRF)- an offshoot of the Pakistani extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, as a “foreign terrorist organization” over the April 22 Islamist militant attack in Kashmir that killed 26 tourists. However, it marked a shift in the US approach to South Asia and Indo-Pacific region where India was considered more significant than Pakistan even when the US was more dependent on Pakistan for the prosecution of the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban.

 

Downturn in the Peaking Relations

 

The Post-Cold War Era saw a transformation in Indo-US relations with the rise of China as a major security concern for the US. In this context, India was considered central to US pivot to Asia. Strengthening a democratic India was considered vital to check the power ambitions of authoritarian China. There was a bipartite consensus on the threat that rising China posed to the US. Although the two democracies preferred to call their relations as natural partnership between the oldest and largest democracies, the threat both perceived from China provided the ultimate glue to the cementing ties.

 

India opened up its economy in 1991, many sectors of the Indian economy hitherto closed for the Americans opened for economic engagements. American software industries were flush with Indian professionals in the US and many worked for them offshore. As a semblance of American recognition of India’s growing economic clout, the Clinton administration forcefully intervened to pressure Pakistan to withdraw its forces sent across the Line of Control in Kashmir near the town of Kargil in mid-1999.

 

The US lifted nuclear sanctions against India imposed following Pokhran II (1998) in the wake of 9/11 and eased export controls on dual-technologies that could be used for both civilian and military purposes. Notwithstanding the American increased dependence on Pakistan, relations between the US and India, during the Jr. Bush administration, cemented with the signing of the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Deal in 2005 which was intended to facilitate the supply of American nuclear energy technology, uranium and reactors to India for civilian purposes. The deal poised to provide India with all benefits that the signatories to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) receive although India had been refuting to sign the treaty even under the American pressure.

The deal came with the recognition of India as a nuclear weapons power. Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008 had led the American leadership to condemn such acts and express solidarity with India to fight terrorism.

During Obama administration, the US and India signed the bilateral Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) giving their militaries access to each other’s facilities for supplies and repairs in a major attempt to take defense relations between them a notch ahead.

 

Under the Trump’s first term, both trade and defense ties between India and US accelerated. According to data released by US Department Commerce, US Census Bureau and US Bureau of Economic Analysis, total bilateral trade including goods and services between India and the US rose from $20 billion in the year 2000 to over $126.1 billion in 2017. The year 2018 not only witnessed further intensification of bilateral defense ties with the signing of the pact – Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) during the 2+2 talks, both countries finalized the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) for Geo-Spatial Cooperation. The administration not only ensured completion of defense deals finalized under Obama administration such as the 2015 sale of AH-64E Apache helicopters but it finalized all the force interoperability agreements such as COMCASA and BECA.

 

President Trump signed into Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA) authorizing a spending of $1.5 billion toward developing a long-term strategic vision and a comprehensive and multifaceted policy for the Indo-Pacific region that recognized the vitality of Indo-US strategic partnership.

 

On the other side, the Trump administration, in its first term, was categorical about the alleged role of Pakistan in sponsoring terrorism and therefore, came out with unambiguous expression of deep concerns and criticisms following the release of the alleged mastermind of Mumbai terrorist attack Hafiz Saeed from house arrest by Pakistan. The administration not only withheld military assistance to Pakistan condemning its role in harboring ‘the agents of chaos’, it clearly expressed its desire to cast India in a more prominent role in its strategy concerning the Indo-Pacific region. The Biden administration recognized India’s vitality to the US’s Indo-Pacific strategy and both countries agreed on a very critical initiative for development and sharing of critical and emerging technologies. In 2022, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden announced the India-US Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET). However, the Trump 2.0 is not exactly the same as its previous stint. Not all in the team of Trump administration 2.0 seem to be in the same page so far as the level of threat that China poses to the US is concerned. They carry different perspectives while some tend to downplay it, some see a deal with China possible as President Trump himself believes. Unlike the first term of the Trump administration, the 2.0 administration no more consists of old Republicans who saw a prosperous and democratic India as a counterweight to revisionist and authoritarian China. The current administration is bent on a give and take relationship with all. It has redefined the US relationship with Europe, allies and partners of other geographical regions so also with India purely in terms of reciprocity and concessions in exchange for past offers of benefits.