It is not uncommon to hear that foreign policy is about national interests, not moral principles. Looking at the way Donald Trump has upended carefully nurtured global agreements – from trade to climate change – it should be clear that short-termism, defined in the narrowest possible way, is the staple of American foreign policy today. While Trump is blatant and often unsophisticated, the policy is not necessarily out of sync with American traditions. Nothing makes this clearer than former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s remark (attributed to him by the Nixon era diplomat Alexander Haig, who said he heard it) in the 1970s: “America has no permanent friends or permanent enemies, only interests.”
Other administrations might speak in a different tone, but the effect of their actions has been no different. Consider Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize winner, who killed more people in drone attacks on Afghanistan than any other President firing from military drones. In his defining 1939 book on international relations (The Twenty Years Crisis: 1919-1939), E H Carr spoke of the political necessity of “cloaking interests in a guise of moral principles” – a century-old observation that remains an enduring insight into the operational realities of American foreign policy.
In today’s context, given the suddenness of the removal of the cloak and the nakedness of American policy, the question is: how does India respond? It is a positive sign that India has not caved in to American demands. These are demands that the nation cannot and must not meet, notably in terms of removing controls on agro and dairy imports, which the US has been pushing for a long time. The import of Russian crude by India has been on the list of the grouses; it serves America to push India to open its markets even more. Now that India did not bend, and was hit with a 50% tariff – among the worst treatments of all nations – what are the lessons that stand out? Given the new and nasty threats emerging from the US that IT and other services will soon face tariffs, the question is urgent.
Further, as India takes on an important counterbalancing effort and works on newer alliances and revisits partnerships, related questions on how the country manages the tightrope become even more important. The most significant event was the very visible participation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the 25th Heads of State Council meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) at Tianjin. Pictured with the Chinese Premier Xi Jinping and the Russian President Vladimir Putin, did not India send out an important message to the US? Did not the US President react immediately, blowing hot and cold? First, he complained that India and Russia were lost to China, and then stressed a special relationship between the US and India, welcomed immediately by Modi. But as Shashi Tharoor quite correctly asks: Can India forget Trump’s insults and the tariffs?
Learnings and losses
That India stands punished despite all the cosying up to Trump should make it clear that overzealousness is never a good ticket and is even counterproductive, particularly if it gets seen as desperation to be included in a given global order. This holds whether the tilt is towards one side or the other. India has already burnt its fingers being overenthusiastic on one side.
To orchestrate and then overread the significance of events like ‘Namaste Trump’ or ‘Howdy Modi’, to overemphasise what is being called personal chemistry, or to wholeheartedly align with the US, seen for example in the way India abstained from a UN General Assembly resolution in June 2025 calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, have been a double whammy: they did not secure Indian interests and they did not make India stand on principle – showing up as neither a realist nor an idealist. The losses weigh heavily on the Indian side. Incidentally, the entire SCO bloc of nations voted for the June resolution, which was titled: ‘Protection of civilians and upholding legal and humanitarian obligations’. No one from the BRICS nations, the SCO bloc, or indeed South Asia (other than India) abstained, pointing to a misalignment in Indian orientation vis-à-vis the SCO nations.
The argument from some quarters that India will command global attention and will be courted because it is an economic powerhouse that will soon be the world’s third-largest economy carries limited appeal. There is, of course, a high interest in India, but with a sharp focus on how its market can be made available for Western businesses. On exports, India does not have a well-diversified portfolio and is overly dependent on the US, enabling that country to squeeze and threaten as it has.
In all this, it is interesting that India has made use of Gandhi to build on the policy of “strategic autonomy” in response to Trump’s actions. An unnamed top government spokesperson has been quoted as explaining India’s reaction to Trump in these words: “We have followed the Gandhian satyagraha model... You hit us, surely it hurts us... but we will not hit back. Nor will we do your bidding or sign on the dotted line.” This has the marks of reaching for a high moral ground, but Gandhian satyagraha will demand much more from India. It will challenge India on aligning with Israel while it bleeds Gaza. And it will raise many other difficult questions that, if followed through, will help India stand erect and tall in a world that still bows to Gandhi.
(The writer is a journalist and faculty member at SPJIMR; Syndicate: The Billion Press)