US-India Partnership at Risk: Why Experts Warn of Growing Strains and Stakes

In prepared remarks submitted to a Congressional committee ahead of a hearing on India on Wednesday, three India experts told the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on South and Central Asia that while defence, technology, and maritime cooperation continue to deepen, the partnership has been destabilised by tariffs, trade disputes, and the Trump administration’s renewed high-level outreach to Pakistan’s military leadership.

Sameer Lalwani from the German Marshall Fund said the United States views India as “a major power -- and one of the most consequential in the 21st century -- given our shared interests, democratic institutions, and visions of international order”. India, he said, is “poised to become a pole in the international system”, offering the United States strategic economic opportunity, technological scale, and expanding military capability.

On the Indo-Pacific, he stressed that the two countries “both seek a multipolar Asia that checks the pacing challenge of China, and its attempts at coercion, military aggression, or geopolitical dominance”. India’s forward posture along the Line of Actual Control, he said, reflects its effort “to defend its borders and deter further Chinese aggression or ‘salami-slicing’ incursions”.

Lalwani warned that India-China relations remain “largely adversarial”, shaped by “economic coercion”, “violent border clashes in 2020”, and “recent battlefield collusion with Pakistan’s military campaign against India”.

India’s ties with Russia, he noted, are narrowing to “hydrocarbons, nuclear energy, and conventional weapons”, with New Delhi “decisively tilting towards America” in maritime security and emerging technologies.

Jeff Smith of the Heritage Foundation described the India-US partnership as “one enduring success” amid two decades of American foreign-policy turbulence but said 2025 had been “challenging” for bilateral ties. He traced the downturn to the administration’s tariff actions, an India-Pakistan confrontation in May, and the political fallout from Washington’s embrace of Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir.

Smith said expectations were high after Prime Minister Modi’s February visit to Washington, but “three things then happened to derail this positive momentum”. These included “25 per cent ‘liberation day’ tariffs”, India’s Operation Sindoor against Pakistan-based terrorists, and a US intervention portrayed at home as equating India with Pakistan. When a second tariff linked to Russian oil followed, Smith said, it left “pro-American voices in New Delhi on the defensive”.

Dhruva Jaishankar of ORF America testified that bilateral progress is now “at a political standstill”. primarily due to “differences over (i) trade and tariffs and (ii) renewed US engagement with Pakistan’s military leadership”. He warned that this environment “risks jeopardising mutually-beneficial cooperation on… trade, technology, energy, and defence cooperation” outlined earlier this year by President Trump and Prime Minister Modi.

On the tariff dispute, he noted that “India was imposed a tariff of 25 per cent, which took effect on August 7,” followed by another 25 per cent tied to Russian oil purchases. With a Bilateral Trade Agreement largely negotiated but unannounced, India now confronts “among the highest” tariff levels applied to any major US partner -- a situation he said “prevents further opportunities at broadening and deepening the economic partnership.”

Yet Jaishankar emphasised that cooperation has not stalled across the board. He cited the new “10-Year Defense Framework Agreement”, recent approvals for Javelin missiles and Excalibur munitions, and major exercises from Diego Garcia to Alaska. Joint work in space, AI, and energy has also advanced despite strained politics.

- IANS