Editor’s Note: Over the past two decades, India and the United States have been widely regarded as natural strategic partners. Geostrategically, both have identified China as a common competitor, while India—seen as a “high-potential asset”—has benefited from comprehensive American support across defence and security, trade and the economy, and science and technology, becoming a clear strategic favourite. Yet with the advent of Trump’s second term, US–India relations have taken a sharp downturn.

India has emerged as one of the countries most severely affected in practice by Trump’s tariff war, while also facing repeated policy provocations and dismissive rhetoric from Washington, effectively relegating it to the status of a strategic discard. This abrupt shift in US policy towards India has attracted widespread attention. Some attribute it to Trump’s personal temperament and governing style; others to the Modi government’s inadequate handling of the Trump administration; still others argue that the real cause lies in the Trump administration’s missteps and vacillation in its China policy. While these explanations each capture certain facets of the trajectory of US–India relations, none can simultaneously account for the broader commonalities in Trump’s recent alliance policy and the particular abruptness of the deterioration in US–India ties.

This article argues that the Trump administration’s “concern over the decline of America’s power”, rather than its “concern over external geopolitical threats”, constitutes the fundamental cause of the sharp transformation in US–India relations. First, it is precisely this anxiety over decline that has led the Trump administration to adopt a more cautious posture towards traditional geopolitical rivals such as China and Russia: beyond rhetorical intimidation, Washington has often acted with notable restraint, wary of being drawn into a new round of geopolitical confrontation that would deplete scarce strategic resources and thereby accelerate America’s own decline. Second, as the Trump administration’s willingness to confront traditional geopolitical adversaries has markedly diminished, US expectations of its allies and partners—including the European Union, India, and Japan—have shifted accordingly. They are no longer viewed primarily as “pieces on the chessboard for encircling America’s enemies”, but increasingly as “blood bags to relieve pressure and prolong America’s survival”. As a result, the starting point of US alliance policy has turned decisively towards the question of how much direct and immediate benefit partners can deliver to the United States. Third, although India has long benefited from American support offered largely “without demanding returns”, it lacks the industrial and economic foundations that enable Japan, South Korea, and Europe to make material concessions and signal loyalty to Washington. Nor is India willing to fall fully into line behind the United States as they have done. Instead, it has vacillated on issues such as sanctions on Russia and the BRICS framework, prompting the Trump administration to regard India as a target requiring forceful pressure and disciplinary coercion.

The shift in the Trump administration’s strategic focus not only helps to explain the common patterns evident in its alliance policy, but also accounts for the distinctive features of its changing policy towards India. Driven by concerns over its own decline, the United States is no longer willing to commit additional resources to supporting India—particularly a still rapidly rising India. As the gap in national power between the two countries continues to narrow, Washington has in fact grown more wary of, and resistant to, India. India’s self-congratulatory discourse regarding its own strength and status, its service-sector-dominated economic structure that closely resembles that of the United States, and the high visibility of the Indian diaspora in Western societies have all, objectively speaking, intensified American perceptions of India as an overall threat. As a result, India has become a focal target of Western right-wing populist movements. The provocative actions and disparaging rhetoric directed at India by Trump himself and figures close to him reflect a broader and increasingly negative perception of India within American—and indeed wider Western—society. Viewed from this perspective, so long as the United States remains preoccupied with anxiety over its declining relative position in the global order, it will sooner or later be compelled to reckon with competition from India, not least because a future “battle for second place” between the two countries—over comprehensive national power and aggregate economic size—cannot be ruled out.

When Support Came without Conditions: America’s “Strategic Altruism” towards India
Since the late 1990s, the U.S. has placed great expectations on India, viewing it as a future superpower on account of its vast population, pivotal geostrategic location, and favourable development trajectory; by virtually every measure, India appeared destined for great-power status. More importantly, as the world’s most populous democracy, India was seen—both ideologically and geostrategically—as fully qualified to rank among America’s key partners, capable of counterbalancing “authoritarian challengers”. On the basis of these expectations, successive US administrations since George W. Bush’s first term have converged on a broadly consistent approach to engaging India. Former US ambassador to India Robert D. Blackwill and former National Security Council official Ashley J. Tellis encapsulated this approach as “strategic altruism”, which for more than two decades has served as the overarching guiding principle anchoring US policy towards India.

US “strategic altruism” towards India rested on a core assumption: that India’s rise—economically, militarily, and diplomatically—would in all respects serve American interests. A stronger and more prosperous India would not only meet the profit expectations of US capital, but would also, by virtue of its growing weight in Asia, crowd out, balance, and constrain a rapidly rising China, thereby becoming a democratic lock checking an “authoritarian China”. This assumption was further extrapolated to suggest that the long-term strategic dividends generated by India’s rise would necessarily outweigh the short-term costs borne by the United States. On this logic, even if India did not deliver immediate returns, Washington should continue to invest in, support, and tolerate India over time. America’s generosity, however, was by no means a matter of pure benevolence or charity; it was a conscious course of action grounded in strategic calculation. When considering support for India, US leaders did not ask, “What can India do for the United States?” but rather, “What can India do for itself?” So long as India continued to advance towards economic prosperity and military strength, it would reinforce a “balance of power favourable to freedom”—a consideration that became ever more salient as China’s influence expanded. Accordingly, US foreign-policy decision-makers judged long-term strategic convergence between the United States and India to be paramount, while short- to medium-term frictions were of secondary importance. As long as India sustained its own momentum of development, Washington saw ample reason to tolerate New Delhi’s self-assertive and unilateralist behaviour on issues ranging from trade barriers and climate negotiation to multilateral affairs at international organizations.

Guided by this line of thinking, since the 1990s the United States—under both Democratic and Republican administrations—has spared no effort in supporting India, even at considerable cost, and has on occasion gone so far as to resolve major difficulties on India’s behalf. For example, the George W. Bush administration took the lead as early as 2001 in lifting the international sanctions imposed on India following its 1998 nuclear tests. It then proceeded, at the risk of widespread international criticism, to push through the US–India Civil Nuclear Agreement, lobbying the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to grant India a special exemption. As a result, India became a rare exception within the international arms-control regime: despite not being a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it was permitted to retain military nuclear capabilities while freely importing nuclear fuel and technology. Similarly, the Obama administration not only publicly endorsed India’s bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in 2010, but in 2016 also designated India a Major Defense Partner (MDP). This status enabled India to enjoy near “alliance-level” treatment in US arms sales and technology transfers—covering almost the full spectrum of advanced mainstream systems—without entering into a formal military alliance with the United States. India has also benefited from Washington’s application of “double standards” in the realm of secondary sanctions. Although US domestic law mandates secondary sanctions for significant transactions involving Russia or Iran, Washington not only exempted India’s participation in the development of Iran’s Chabahar Port, but the US Congress later passed specific legislation allowing India to deploy Russian-made S-400 air defence systems without triggering US secondary sanctions. By contrast, Turkey—despite facing comparable circumstances—was denied such an exemption.

It is worth noting that, as the United States has come under mounting pressure in the geopolitical arena, the Biden administration—seeking to counterbalance China more effectively—has moved to bind India more closely to Washington across industry, technology, science, and defence. For example, the Biden administration’s Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) relaxed export controls and restrictions on technology transfer to India, granting it a form of “internal access” to cutting-edge fields such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and nuclear energy. Similarly, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF)  launched by the Biden administration in 2021—particularly its pillars on “fair and resilient trade”  and “supply-chain resilience”—has helped India substitute for Chinese manufacturing capacity through “friend-shoring”. Senior figures within the Biden administration, including the so-called “Indo-Pacific czar” Kurt Campbell and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, have even argued—after leaving office—for the establishment of a new type of US–India alliance. They have proposed anchoring this relationship on “five pillars” drawn from areas of pronounced US advantage, namely frontier technologies, industrial economics, military and defence, intelligence and information, and global coordination. In this vision, the aim is to provide more systematic support for India: replacing iCET with the Technology for Resilient, Innovative, and Secure Trust (TRUST) initiative to promote India’s frontier technological development; advancing joint arms production and research through the India–US Defense Acceleration Ecosystem (INDUS-X); and fostering India’s industrial upgrading through bilateral supply-chain and investment agreements.

Although the foregoing examples represent only selected episodes from the recent intensification of US–India engagement, they are nonetheless highly representative. In order to exempt India, the United States was willing to compromise established practices in international nuclear non-proliferation governance, even at the expense of its own international authority. It accepted the stigma of “double standards” and extended to India forms of preferential treatment beyond the reach of most other countries. It was likewise prepared to commit its own industrial and technological advantages to fostering India’s development. All this demonstrates that America’s long-standing pursuit of “strategic altruism” towards India was substantive rather than rhetorical—an approach grounded in concrete policy choices rather than self-serving posturing. Yet this pattern of preferential treatment, long enjoyed by India and increasingly taken for granted, came to an abrupt end when Trump entered the White House for his second term.

The Sudden Reversal of US–India Relations in Trump’s Second Term
If previous US presidents had never paused to ask “what India has done for the United States”, Trump in his second term not only posed this question explicitly, but did so with a megaphone—at maximum volume, in the harshest tone, and in the crudest language, repeating it again and again. Since 2025, the Trump administration has not only pressured India to purchase more American arms and energy, but has also imposed a 25 per cent “reciprocal tariff” on Indian goods, along with an additional 25 per cent secondary sanction linked to Russia. At the same time, it has sharply increased visa fees for Indian nationals in the United States and tightened restrictions on service outsourcing to India. Within a very short span of time, India was transformed from a courted beneficiary of American exceptional favour into a target of maximum pressure and coercive disciplining. This abrupt downturn in US–India relations has deeply unsettled India’s strategic elite as well as a segment of the American foreign-policy community, with some even warning that “the efforts made by the United States over the past two decades to improve India–US relations have been squandered by Trump’s India policy”.

First, India has been among the countries hit hardest by Trump’s global tariff war. As one of the earliest foreign leaders to visit Washington during Trump’s second term, Prime Minister Modi entered his February 2025 meeting with Trump hoping to resolve outstanding trade disputes; both sides did indeed pledge to “raise bilateral trade to USD 500 billion by 2030”. Even after the Trump administration unveiled its “reciprocal tariffs” in early April, senior Indian officials continued to boast that this represented a “once in a generation opportunity” for India, expressing confidence that Indian exports to the United States would face lower tariffs than those of most other countries, thereby allowing India to capitalise on supply-chain relocation and expand its exports. However, owing to India’s hard-line stance on issues such as agricultural tariffs and failure by Washington and New Delhi to reach any agreement before the end of July, Indian exports to the United States were subjected to a 25 per cent tariff, not only higher than those imposed on South Asian neighbours such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, but also above the levels applied to Southeast Asian countries including Vietnam and Cambodia. India’s much-touted “tariff advantage” thus evaporated. Moreover, citing India’s continued “purchases of Russian oil”, the Trump administration imposed an additional 25 per cent secondary tariff on Indian goods, pushing the total tariff burden on Indian exports to the United States to as high as 50 per cent—significantly higher than that faced by China. This directly punctured India’s grand narrative as a preferred destination for industrial and supply-chain relocation. If Indian exports to the United States are subject to higher tariffs than Chinese goods, the very premise on which India seeks to attract global investment risks rapid collapse.

Second, India’s service sector, the mainstay of its economy, has been subjected to highly targeted pressure. India has long run a structural deficit in merchandise trade and relies heavily on service exports and overseas remittances to maintain balance-of-payments stability and ensure overall macroeconomic steadiness. In mid-September, the Trump administration signed an executive order proposing to raise the fee for the H-1B visa to USD 100,000 for foreign skilled workers. Although the policy made no explicit reference to India, given that Indian nationals account for as much as 71 per cent of successful H-1B applicants, the measure would substantially raise the barriers for Indians seeking to work in the United States and sharply curtail India’s incremental remittance income. Given that India is the world’s largest recipient of remittances—and that the Indian diaspora in the United States constitutes a core source—the revised H-1B policy would not only strain US–India relations, but could also pose risks to India’s macroeconomic stability. Subsequently, the US Congress introduced the Halting International Relocation of Employment Act (HIRE Act), which proposes a 25 per cent consumption tax on payments made by US firms to overseas service providers, with the explicit aim of preventing the offshoring of American service-sector jobs. Industry analysts estimate that US outsourcing contracts account for 50–60 per cent of the revenues of Indian IT firms and Global Capability Centres (GCCs), meaning that, if enacted, the legislation could deal a direct blow to India’s USD 260 billion technology sector. Should these policy measures take effect in combination, the impact on India’s service exports could be severe. On the one hand, the new H-1B rules would block a key channel through which Indians working in the United States generate remittance income; on the other, the outsourcing restrictions would simultaneously choke off opportunities for Indian firms to secure service contracts at home.

Third, India has been subjected to an unprecedented intensity of verbal provocation from figures within Trump’s inner circle. Trump himself has repeatedly targeted India by seizing on issues ranging from India–Pakistan relations and macroeconomic performance to the Ukraine crisis. Shortly after an India–Pakistan aerial clash, Trump announced plans to develop Pakistan’s oil resources, mockingly suggesting that “Pakistan might one day even sell oil to India”. Around the same time, he declared that the Indian economy was “dead”, adding that there was “no business to be done with India” because Indian tariffs were “the highest in the world”. In August, Trump further attacked India for purchasing large volumes of Russian oil and reselling it on the open market for substantial profits, accusing India of “not caring whether Ukrainians live or die”. At the same time, Trump’s close associates—including presidential adviser Peter Navarro, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick—joined what might be described as a contest of ever-harsher rhetoric. Navarro not only labelled the Ukraine crisis “Modi’s war”, but went so far as to describe India as “a laundromat for the Kremlin”. Bessent argued that while both China and India purchase Russian oil, India’s profiteering was more reprehensible than China’s. Lutnick, for his part, bluntly characterised India as “a country that needs fixing”. Attacks from Trump’s political base—the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement—have been even more unrestrained. For instance, the right-wing internet personality Charlie Kirk, who was later assassinated, claimed that Indian immigrants were “crowding out American workers”, arguing therefore that “America does not need more Indians to get visas”. Trump-favoured right-wing activist Laura Loomer went further still, branding Indian immigrants “Third World invaders”.

An analysis of the abrupt downturn in US–India relations reveals several salient features. First, the shift has been exceptionally abrupt: India has moved from being a long-standing “darling”  enjoying American exceptional favour to a “discarded” actor, now subjected to highly targeted pressure by the Trump administration. Second, the scope of impact has been extensive. India has not only come under pressure on tariffs, but has also faced maximum coercion in areas such as immigration and service outsourcing. Third, American rhetoric has been overtly provocative and insulting. The U.S. has shown little regard for India’s self-image as a major global power, repeatedly choosing to “call out and humiliate” India over issues it has sought carefully to gloss over—such as the India–Pakistan ceasefire, Indian military aircraft losses, and imports of Russian oil—while simultaneously applying even harsher pressure on India through secondary sanctions.

Current Explanations for the Sudden Reversal in US–India Ties
The sharp volatility in US–India relations has attracted intense attention from global policy and academic communities, which have advanced a range of explanations that are, on the surface, highly persuasive. The most common line of interpretation attributes the downturn to Trump’s personal temperament and behaviour. For example, the Indian scholar Narendra Taneja argues that “this is less a problem between the United States and India than one between Trump and India”. Similarly, former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton has suggested that the sharp decline in U.S.–India relations is merely “one of the many eccentricities of the Trump presidency”, asserting that “when Trump leaves office, he will take this episode of history with him”. Along comparable lines, scholars such as Tanvi Madan contend that Trump was deeply dissatisfied with India’s handling of the India–Pakistan ceasefire, believing that his own mediation efforts had not received sufficient recognition from New Delhi, while Pakistan, by contrast, praised him effusively and even nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

A second, and equally mainstream, line of explanation locates the deterioration in India’s own policy choices. For instance, Milan Vaishnav argues that India should respond to America’s “strategic altruism” by accommodating a Trump who is perpetually eager to gain the upper hand—making concessions [让步], delivering tangible outcomes, and keeping demands to a minimum. He further maintains that, in order to secure future security and prosperity, it is India rather than the United States that must temporarily bear the pain of sacrifice. Similarly, Ashley J. Tellis contends that India has long relied on the U.S. while simultaneously indulging the illusion that it has already become one pole in a multipolar world. Unless India dispels this misconception about its own power, he warns, it will inevitably damage U.S.–India relations and suffer the consequences. [11] In the same vein, Sidharth Raimedhi argues that India’s long-standing tendency to “seek benefits without paying costs” can be sustained in the short term, but is inherently unsustainable over time.

A further explanation points to India’s exposure of its own limits in national power. One of the key assumptions underpinning America’s long-standing bet on India’s rise has been the expectation that India would, over time, be capable of balancing China. Yet, as Sidharth Raimedhi notes, China has in recent years continued to widen its lead over India, prompting growing doubts about whether India can realistically catch up. If the U.S. no longer expects India to play this balancing role, it is only natural that US attitudes towards India would cool accordingly. Ashley J. Tellis likewise argues that the India–Pakistan air clashes of May 2025 demonstrated that India was unable even to secure overwhelming superiority over Pakistan—let alone confront China single-handedly. In his assessment, even by 2047, the centenary of India’s independence, India would still require external assistance to counterbalance China. Chietigj Bajpaee further observes that while the Trump administration targeted India on the grounds of its trade surplus with the United States and its purchases of Russian oil, it did not apply comparable pressure to other surplus countries such as China, Japan, and South Korea, nor to major buyers of Russian oil such as China and Turkey. This selective treatment, he argues, underscores India’s limited bargaining power and retaliatory capacity, making it a comparatively easier target for coercion.

In addition, some analysts locate the fundamental cause of the shift in U.S.–India relations in changes in U.S. policy towards China. Ashley J. Tellis argues that the United States previously treated great-power competition with China as the central axis of its foreign policy, a framing that conferred exceptional priority on India. In Trump’s second term, however, competition with China is no longer understood primarily as a traditional geopolitical rivalry, but rather as an economic contest—one in which the entire world is increasingly viewed as an economic competitor of the United States. Milan Vaishnav similarly observes that Trump’s second-term China policy has been neither clear nor coherent. While a bipartisan consensus in the United States has long held that India constitutes a key bulwark against China in the Asia-Pacific, any weakening of that consensus would inevitably diminish India’s importance.

It can be said that these explanations each shed light, to varying degrees, on certain aspects of the current state of U.S.–India relations, yet they also suffer from clear shortcomings. On the one hand, they fail to account for the commonalities between Trump’s policy towards India and his approach to other allies, even though his hard-line posture has by no means been directed at India alone. On the other hand, they do not adequately explain the distinctive intensity, breadth, and provocativeness of Trump’s policy towards India in particular.

The Trump Administration’s Strategic Shift from “Geopolitical Competition” to “National Survival”
The core reason for the abrupt deterioration in U.S.–India relations lies in the fact that the Trump administration’s “concern over the decline of America’s power” has come to outweigh its “concern over external geopolitical threats”.

First, the Trump administration has been deeply preoccupied with concerns over America’s own relative decline, displaying a far more pronounced inward-looking tendency and adopting extreme caution towards traditional forms of geopolitical competition, lest the depletion of strategic resources accelerate that very decline. Indian scholars have lamented that, while the Trump administration imposed secondary sanctions on India on the grounds of “transactions involving Russia”, it simultaneously extended tacit overtures towards Russia itself; while levying heavy tariffs on India as a geo-economic partner, it treated China—nominally a strategic rival—with relative restraint. This pattern of behaviour reflects a shift in threat perception. The core narrative underpinning the MAGA movement that supports Trump is that America’s global position is in grave peril and that the country must urgently focus on “national survival”, while guarding against the overextension of geopolitical commitments that could further drain national power. As a result, Trump has acted with greater prudence, even to the extent of stepping outside conventional friend–foe dichotomies to conduct what amounts to a “strategic audit” of costs and benefits. From this perspective, the Trump administration’s comparatively conciliatory posture towards China and Russia stems from the recognition that both possess not only the capability but also the will to retaliate against the United States. Aggressive containment would therefore risk entangling the U.S. in new rounds of geopolitical confrontation, hastening America’s own decline. Seen in this light, China and Russia have been redefined—from threats demanding active countering to actors with whom the United States must learn to coexist, and even, potentially, collaborators in forms of geopolitical collusions.

Second, the Trump administration’s expectations of its allies and partners have shifted from seeing them as “pieces on the chessboard for encircling enemies” to viewing them as “blood bags to sustain America’s survival”. A scholar who previously served as an Indian diplomat has revealed that, in the past, discussions with American counterparts frequently centred on how India contributed to competition with China. Under Trump, however, the response has become: “Don’t tell me what you have done to deal with China—tell me what you have done for the United States.” At the core of this shift lies a fundamental transformation in America’s expectations of its allies. For decades, it had expected partners to play a supportive role—benefiting from U.S. backing while coordinating to contain and counter adversaries such as China, Russia, and North Korea. Once the Trump administration’s primary concern became the decline of America’s own power, however, allies were redefined as instruments for relieving pressure and prolonging U.S. strength—“blood bags”. Viewed through this lens, the strategic importance of institutions such as NATO and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) has declined sharply. The U.S. no longer expects—nor feels it needs—its allies to participate in geopolitical confrontation. Instead, it prefers to bypass multilateral frameworks in favour of bilateral pressure, pushing partners to purchase more of their energy and weaponry and to commit large-scale outbound investments. Compared with geopolitical competition—where the costs are believed to be borne by the United States while the returns remain uncertain—extracting tangible concessions from allies promises quicker, clearer, and more immediate benefits for Washington.

Third, although India has long benefited from American support grounded in “strategic altruism”, it lacks the material capacity and economic foundations that Japan, South Korea, and Europe possess to offer concessions and signal deference to the United States. Nor has it been willing to bow as fully to Washington as they have done. Instead, India has vacillated on issues such as sanctions on Russia and participation in the BRICS framework—behaviour that has become increasingly intolerable in the eyes of a Trump administration adept at conducting “strategic audits”. To be sure, for a long period the United States was willing to pursue towards India a form of strategic altruism that “did not demand short-term returns and focused only on long-term value”. Yet this approach rested on an implicit premise: a high degree of confidence in America’s own strength and its substantial lead over India. Washington was assured that supporting India would not undermine US power, nor would India, as a result, pose any meaningful threat to the United States. Once that confidence began to erode—especially as anxieties over relative decline took hold—this policy of concessions towards India not only became unsustainable, but also triggered a strong “compensatory psychology”. The U.S. increasingly adopted the mindset of a “creditor”, seeking to reclaim benefits previously extended and privileges once granted. From the Trump administration’s perspective, for example, India’s ability to purchase Russian oil was not the result of diplomatic finesse, but merely a consequence of special exemptions granted by the United States. If the Modi government failed to cooperate, Washington would not only be fully justified in revoking those exemptions, but would also compel India to pay a price for the privileges it had previously enjoyed. Likewise, although India has long received American support, it has proved more reluctant than Japan, South Korea, or Europe to make concessions on issues central to U.S. interests—such as tariffs, energy, and arms purchases. It has even refused to accord Trump what he considers due recognition for his role in the India–Pakistan ceasefire, while enthusiastically participating in multilateral mechanisms such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and BRICS which Washington sees as inimical to its interests. In this light, India appears conspicuously ungrateful. Given the Trump administration’s long-standing narrative that the United States has been exploited by its allies, forced to shoulder excessive burdens while receiving inadequate returns in exchange, India’s perceived behaviour—taking more than it gives, lacking gratitude, overestimating its own standing, and even causing disruption—has made it a prime target for repeated pressure, and even humiliation, by Trump himself and those around him.

In addition, there may be a more complex dimension to U.S.–India relations. A closer examination of the rhetoric of far-right American opinion leaders such as Charlie Kirk and Laura Loomer suggests that segments of U.S. society have developed a strong sense of threat vis-à-vis India’s rise, particularly resentment towards what is perceived as “India’s rise at America’s expense”. Some have even framed this grievance in blunt terms, claiming that “high-end Indians come to Silicon Valley to take American jobs, while low-end Indians stay in India to take American jobs”. As Sino–U.S. strategic rivalry enters a phase of stalemate, and as India’s position in the global political economy continues to rise, frictions between the United States and India are likely to intensify further. First, once the United States begins to worry about its own relative standing, India’s self-aggrandising narratives not only fail to enhance its “united front value”, but instead invite greater American pressure and extraction. Second, against the backdrop of the U.S. economy’s long-term shift from the real economy towards financialization and digitalization, India’s official push to expand Global Capability Centres (GCCs) and to promote the outward mobility of technical talent has objectively eroded the foundations of America’s service sector, even generating head-to-head, structurally similar competition. Third, amid the resurgence of anti-immigration sentiment across Western societies, the relatively high levels of achievement and visibility of the Indian diaspora have paradoxically made it more vulnerable as a scapegoat for populist discontent, thereby imposing greater diplomatic pressure and strategic apprehension on India as a country of origin. Seen in this light, the current round of pressure and provocation directed at India by Trump himself and figures close to him—particularly restrictions related to H-1B visas and service outsourcing—is likely to reflect the growing prevalence of negative sentiment towards India within American society.

Conclusion
At present, many experts and scholars attribute the abrupt deterioration in US–India relations during Trump’s second term to Trump’s personal temperament, India’s unilateral policy missteps, or ambiguity in US policy towards China. On this basis, they tend to regard the current situation as a temporary aberration, and to expect that a more moderate and rational U.S. administration in the “post-Trump era” will be able to steer U.S.–India relations back onto the “normal track” that characterised the past two decades. Their inclination to reach such conclusions stems largely from intellectual inertia: an unwillingness to question America’s power and status makes it difficult for them to recognise that the decisive factor reshaping Trump’s foreign-policy orientation is precisely “concern over the decline of America’s own power”. While a recovery in U.S.–India relations in the future cannot be ruled out, scholars must look beyond surface phenomena to grasp the underlying dynamics, and ask whether the structural factors driving the current volatility in U.S.–India relations are likely to intensify or to weaken over time.

Should the United States’ relative political and economic power continue to erode globally, American decision-makers and society are likely to become increasingly preoccupied with preserving their position, generating sharper threat perceptions of a still rapidly rising India whose industrial structure closely resembles their own. Under this scenario, if China consolidates a position of overriding strength through advances in defence capabilities and industrial and technological power—particularly by securing a clear and decisive advantage in comparison with the United States—this would, in objective terms, further intensify U.S.–India same-rank competition. It could accelerate a prospective “battle for second place” between the United States and India over global rankings in comprehensive national power and aggregate economic size, and might even create conditions in which the two sets of structural contradictions—between China and the United States, and between China and India—achieve some form of a “self-resolution of dual dilemmas”, thereby driving a systemic shift in the broader geopolitical landscape.

Editor: Zhiyu Wang