Tensions Rise in U.S.-India Relations

July 31—With the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) annual summit in Tianjin, China approaching at the end of August, and with it the prospect that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in person, and possibly have a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping—and perhaps even agree to a resumption of the RIC (Russia-India-China) dialogue format—tensions are rising between the U.S. and India.

Last week, after U.S. President Donald Trump had raised the prospect of secondary sanctions on BRICS nations that dared to trade with Russia, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte had warned India, China, and Brazil of “consequences” if they didn’t stop. “My encouragement to these three countries, particularly is, if you live now in Beijing, or in Delhi, or you are the President of Brazil, you might want to take a look into this, because this might hit you very hard,” Rutte told reporters.

Russia’s Ambassador to India Denis Alipov responded in an op-ed in India’s Economic Times on July 27, charging Rutte with “glaring hypocrisy…. Why is the head of a transatlantic military alliance threatening India with American economic sanctions?”

In addition, Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar responded to the recurrent claims by Washington that Trump had arranged to chill out the May India-Pakistan border incident based on a trade agreement. Jaishankar on July 28 addressed the lower house of parliament on India’s military confrontation with Pakistan—Operation Sindoor—stating: “I want to make two things clear—one, at no stage in any conversation with the United States, was there any linkage with trade and what was going on…. Secondly, there was no call between the Prime Minister and President Trump from the 22nd of April—when President Trump called up to convey his sympathy—and 17th of June when he called up the Prime Minister in Canada to explain why he could not meet him.”