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01.09.2025 | Подвійне приниження Трампа: Сі обіймає Моді та Путіна
Адріан Бломфілд, Самаан Латі - The Telegraph

If Donald Trump hoped to bring India to heel, things are not going to plan.

Narendra Modi has not only proved unyielding. He is also giving the US president the silent treatment.

Since Mr Trump singled out India with an unexpectedly draconian double dose of tariffs earlier this month, he has reportedly phoned the Indian prime minister on four occasions to seek a compromise. Each time, the Indian leader refused to pick up.

In the same period, Mr Modi has twice spoken to his “friend” Vladimir Putin and dispatched his foreign minister to Moscow. This weekend, he travels to China for the first time in seven years to attend a security summit hosted by Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, in the north-eastern city of Tianjin. The two men, long estranged but now bound by circumstance, will hold talks on Sunday.


Since 2001, Washington has sought to pull India into its orbit as a bulwark against a rising China. But Mr Trump has just taken a blowtorch to a quarter of a century of careful diplomacy, first imposing a 25 per cent tariff on Indian exports, then doubling down to punish New Delhi for buying Russian oil – the stiffest measures Washington has imposed on any country bar Brazil.


Adding insult to injury, Mr Trump has forged a new friendship with Pakistan, India’s bitterest foe, even inviting its hardline army chief and de facto leader, Asim Munir, to lunch at the White House. Mr Modi has been left out in the cold.

By wielding hard power so bluntly, analysts warn, Mr Trump risks the opposite of what he intended: driving India closer to Moscow and Beijing.

The rift comes at an opportune moment for Mr Xi, who this weekend is hosting some of Washington’s principal adversaries at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a bloc founded by China and Russia to counter US influence.

Authoritarian superstars will be there in force. Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator, is arriving in his bullet-proof train; Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian, will be there too, as will Putin himself.



But the biggest coup is Mr Modi, whose relationship with Mr Xi has been badly strained since a Himalayan border clash, fought with sticks and bricks, killed 20 Indian soldiers in June 2020.


The fact that rapprochement is happening at all, given the once-close personal bond between Mr Trump and Mr Modi, is remarkable.

Love and bromance

Personal affinity, shared populist instincts and business links once tied the two leaders closely together. Both addressed vast rallies in the other’s country: 50,000 at the “Howdy, Modi” rally in Texas in 2019; 100,000 at the “Namaste, Trump” jamboree in Ahmedabad the next year.

Strategic alignment followed. With both unnerved by China’s rise, India joined the Quad – an informal grouping with the US, Australia and Japan – to counter Beijing’s influence.

Business links deepened the rapport. The Trump Organization, the Trump family’s business conglomerate, put down deep roots in India, one of its biggest markets.

At least ten Trump-branded buildings have been built, are under construction or are in planning. Flats in Trump Towers sold at a premium on the name alone.


Ties extended to India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, a close ally and beneficiary of Mr Modi, a fellow native of the state of Gujarat. Mr Ambani attended Mr Trump’s pre-inauguration dinner this year, stood in the front row for his speech and joined an intimate reception afterwards.

Last year, he also hosted Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the president’s daughter and son-in-law, at his son’s £500 million “wedding of the century”, ostensibly cementing family ties.

But such ties counted for little in the end. Reliance, Mr Ambani’s conglomerate and India’s biggest refiner of Russian crude, has become the chief target of Mr Trump’s ire.

Trouble ahead

The bond began to fray early in Mr Trump’s second term, when he unleashed a global trade war. Expecting India to yield and open its heavily protected agricultural sector to US investors, he was rebuffed by Mr Modi, wary of a political backlash. Washington retaliated with a 25 per cent tariff.

“If India had given in to US pressure to open its agriculture and dairy industries, it would have created significant political and electoral problems,” said Biswajit Dhar, a trade economist in Delhi.

Then came the real rupture. Washington doubled the penalty, accusing India of “oil laundering”. Scott Bessent, Mr Trump’s treasury secretary, lashed out at “India’s politically connected energy titans”, accusing them of war “profiteering”. Although he did not mention Mr Ambani by name, it was clear to whom he was referring.

The charge was not baseless. India bought little from Russia before the Ukraine war, but has since spent more than £100 billion on discounted crude. Reliance alone imported £6.4 billion in the first seven months of this year, according to the Helsinki-based Centre for Research of Energy and Clean Air (CREA), which tracks global energy output.


Yet Washington’s focus on India is puzzling. China is a bigger buyer. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Japan are significant customers. Europe remains Russia’s largest gas customer. Austria and Slovakia have increased their dependency since the war; Austria now sources 98 per cent of its gas imports from Russia. None of them has received similar penalties.

India’s baffled government argues it bought Russian oil with Washington’s blessing and then sold much of what it refined to the EU. It also points out that tariffs on India are five times higher than those on Russia itself, which was automatically granted the preferential rate that Britain was forced to scramble to negotiate.


Many in Delhi believe the true trigger was political. Mr Trump has repeatedly claimed it was his diplomacy alone that ended a four-day military clash between India and Pakistan in May, a boast he has made more than 40 times. Pakistan credited him — even nominating him for a Nobel Peace Prize. India pointedly did not.

Since then, Washington’s previously frosty relations have warmed. Beyond White House lunches, Washington has floated mining and cryptocurrency deals and pledged to help develop Pakistan’s “massive oil reserves” — though in reality they are tiny and declining, accounting for just 0.02 per cent of the world’s total. With India’s economy ten times the size of its neighbour’s, prioritising Pakistan makes little strategic sense.

Let’s face the music

So deep, sudden and galling is the chill in US-Indian ties that it is hardly surprising that Mr Modi, bruised and humiliated, is looking elsewhere.

For China, the crisis is a gift. Mr Trump has now fallen out publicly with three regional powerhouses — India, Brazil and South Africa — allowing Mr Xi to present Beijing as a more responsible, less temperamental partner.


Mr Xi has the opportunity to present China to Mr Modi, left, as a more responsible player Credit: AP
Yet a fundamental realignment is unlikely. China and India are rivals for Asian dominance. Their interests will surely collide. Only the US can balance that rivalry.

“There are serious limitations to India’s and China’s relationship,” says Praveen Donthi, senior India analyst at think-tank the International Crisis Group. “Things may be getting better, but it can never become truly friendly because of the huge historic deficit that exists.”


Still, a shift in tone is likely. Indian politicians, long wary of dependence on Washington, now feel vindicated. Mr Modi will be under pressure to re-emphasise India’s policy of “multi-alignment” — a friend to all, enemy to none.

He may cool enthusiasm for the Quad, in public at least, buy more arms from Russia and deepen trade links with Moscow. An invitation to Putin to visit India before the end of the year has already been extended.

But the US remains India’s largest export market, most important source of foreign investment and a vital defence partner. Mr Modi may try to mollify Washington — perhaps buying less Russian oil and more American gas, a relatively painless concession given falling prices.

As Mr Donthi puts it: “India-US relations will find their balance over time because of their concerns about China.

India was trying to move closer to the West and the US. That pace will slow down a bit right now, but it will still move.”

A divorce is therefore unlikely. But any reconciliation will be starchily made. Mr Modi wants to show that the days of foreign powers pushing India around are over.

Mr Modi and Mr Trump may patch things up, but the bromance is most likely finished. The marriage will continue — but it will be loveless, born of necessity.


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