Mistakes, blunders, more mistakes, more blunders – Firstpost

Relations between India and the United States have witnessed many ups and downs since India’s independence in 1947. In the initial more than 50 years, the relations were largely marred by suspicion and mistrust, principally because the US considered India’s stance of non-alignment as ‘immoral’ and due to India’s perceived closeness to the Soviet Union. The US’ supply of sophisticated weaponry to Pakistan and its steadfast support for Pakistan on the Kashmir issue also did not help matters. The biggest question that loomed large over the bilateral ties was, “Can India trust the United States?”

All this underwent a subtle but decisive change with the visit of President Bill Clinton to India in March 2000. In the following years, bilateral relations transformed into a dynamic and vigorous partnership. Other US Presidents after Clinton, including George W Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, also worked assiduously to make the partnership resilient and strong. In India too, all prime ministers, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh and the current prime minister, Narendra Modi, have contributed sedulously to the expansion of bilateral ties. Much of the credit for the exceptional rise in bilateral ties over the last decade would go to PM Modi because of the vision and steadfast leadership he has displayed in registering a quantum jump in bilateral relations.

Bipartisan support exists in both countries among the political leadership, parliamentarians, the business community and citizens for ever stronger relations between the two countries. This has made the bilateral relationship the most consequential for India in these volatile and uncertain times.

Today relations between the two countries have evolved into a comprehensive global strategic partnership covering almost all areas of human endeavour, driven by shared democratic values, convergence of interests on a range of issues, and vibrant people-to-people contacts. High-level exchanges and regular dialogue between the leaders have emerged as an important element of the expanding bilateral ties.

Evolution of Relations in Recent Years

Addressing the Joint Session of the US Congress in June 2016, Prime Minister Modi declared that India had overcome the ’hesitations of history’ as far as bilateral relations are concerned. And there had been serious and long-standing ‘’hesitations’’ and doubts ranging from the support by the US to Pakistan in the UN Security Council on the Kashmir issue, threats and intimidation in the Bay of Bengal resorted to by the US in 1971 during the India-Pakistan war leading to the independence of Bangladesh, stoppage of supply of nuclear fuel after India’s 1974 Peaceful Nuclear Explosion, wide-ranging sanctions against India in the aftermath of India’s nuclear tests in May, 1998, etc. Evincing confidence about the upward trajectory of bilateral ties, PM Modi in his address in 2016 declared that ’a new symphony is at play in the India-US bilateral relations’.

The Pahalgam Escalation and Operation Sindoor Reprisal

This symphony received a rude jolt from the comments of US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the conflict that erupted between India and Pakistan in the wake of the Pakistan-sponsored terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, on April 22, killing 26 innocent civilians, 25 of them Hindus, because of the religion they professed. As retribution for this heinous act by Pakistan in Pahalgam, India, in the early morning of May 7, 2025, under Operation Sindoor, destroyed 9 of its terrorist strongholds and hideouts, 5 in the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) and 4 in the heart of Pakistan in Punjab, including Bahwalpur, the headquarters of Masood Azhar’s Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Muridke, the stronghold of Hafez Sayeed’s Lashkar-e-Tayyeba. This was followed by the demolition of 13 airfields of Pakistan in the early morning of 10th May in retaliation for the attacks on civilians, military establishments and places of worship by Pakistan.

The Trump Intrusion

At about 5:30 PM on May 10, 2025, a message surfaced on Trump’s Truth Social platform claiming that “After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE.” Trump praised the two countries for “using common sense and great intelligence”.

Marco Rubio followed the lead of his president by writing on X a little later the same day, ’Over the past 48 hours, @VP Vance and I have engaged with senior Indian and Pakistani officials, including Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Shehbaz Sharif, External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir, and National Security Advisors Ajit Doval and Asim Malik. I am pleased to announce the governments of India and Pakistan have agreed to an immediate ceasefire and to start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site.’ He gratuitously commended ‘Prime Ministers Modi and Sharif on their wisdom, prudence, and statesmanship in choosing the path of peace.’’ ‘

Trump didn’t stop at this. He compounded his earlier error the next day by appreciating the ‘’strong and unwaveringly powerful leadership of India and Pakistan for having the strength, wisdom and fortitude to fully know and understand that it was time to stop the current aggression that could have led to the death and destruction of so many, and so much.” Trump further said, “Millions of good and innocent people could have died! Your legacy is greatly enhanced by your brave actions. I am proud that the USA was able to help you arrive at this historic and heroic decision. While not even discussed, I am going to increase trade substantially with both of these great nations. Additionally, I will work with both of you to see if, after a thousand years, a solution can be arrived at concerning Kashmir. God bless the leadership of India and Pakistan on a job well done.’’

On his first visit after assuming office to Saudi Arabia with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in the audience, Trump stated that he had ‘successfully brokered a historic ceasefire to stop the escalating violence between India and Pakistan’, and he used trade to a large extent to do it. He added, “And they both have very powerful leaders, very strong leaders, good leaders, smart leaders. And it all stopped. Hopefully, it’ll remain that way, but it all stopped.”

Trump singled out Marco Rubio for leading US efforts in the India-Pakistan situation.

Here is what the US president said: “Millions of people could have died from that conflict that started off small and was getting bigger and bigger and bigger by the day. And I used trade to a large extent to do it. And I [Trump] said, ‘Fellows, come on. Let’s make a deal. Let’s do some trading. Let’s not trade nuclear missiles. Let’s trade the things that you make so beautifully’.”

And he said it again on May 14, in an interview with Fox News, that he brokered the ceasefire between India and Pakistan.

Trump, by his uncalled-for and unsubstantiated remarks done a great disservice to the cause of India-US partnership. The first grave error he made was to jump the gun and announce the ceasefire agreement without waiting for India to announce it. This obviously stemmed from his desire to win global applause and acclaim and appear influential for the cause of peace on the international arena. Possibly he has illusions of being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which his predecessor Barack Obama had received in his first year in office.

It made the matters more objectionable because there was little factual accuracy in his claims. The US contribution to the ceasefire was minimal, if any. Trump’s claim went counter to the long-stated policy of India that it would not countenance any third-party mediation between India and Pakistan. In the current case also, India asserted shortly after Trump’s announcement on May 10 that the ceasefire had been reached directly between India and Pakistan when the Pakistan Director General Military Operations (DGMO) called his Indian counterpart and pleaded for a ceasefire, which request was acceded to by India. In his press conference on May 13, the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs categorically stated that the ceasefire was agreed to in direct talks between the senior military officers of India and Pakistan and that no third country was involved.

This became absolutely clear when PM Modi, while addressing the nation on May 12, did not make any reference to America as far as the ceasefire was concerned. In his address he laid out a new normal for dealing with terrorism from Pakistan. He said that any act of terror will be treated as an act of war and will be responded to as such. Moreover, terror and trade and terror and talks will not go together. Also, blood and water will not flow together.

In a pointed rebuttal to Rubio’s assertion that ‘’talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site’’ will take place, PM Modi made it very clear that the only conversation with Pakistan will be on stopping terrorism from Pakistan and on the return of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) to India. It has also been categorically stated that there will be no rethink on the suspension of the Indus Water Treaty till Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for terrorism against India. This position was reiterated by EAM S Jaishankar on May 15.

Trump committed several more blunders in his assertions. He equated India and Pakistan, while it is clear that Pakistan is the perpetrator of terrorism and India the victim. After the Pahalgam attack, the whole world stood with India that the victims of the barbarous massacre should be given justice and the perpetrators be punished for this outrageous crime.

Trump’s messages on the Truth Social platform and other statements sound all the more jarring, as during PM Modi’s visit to the White House on February 13, 2025, the two leaders agreed that in addition to the extradition of Tahawwur Rana, a Pakistani-origin Canadian citizen and mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack, they will push back against cross-border terrorism that India faces from Pakistan and act against activities of JeM, LeT, ISIS, and Al Qaeda to prevent heinous acts like the attacks in Mumbai on 26/11 and the Abbey Gate bombing in Afghanistan on 26 August 2021.

In addition, during his first term, in his first tweet of 2018, on January 1, 2018, Trump had written, ’The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!’

It is internationally known that Pakistan is the epicentre of terror. Most terror acts around the world have a link to Pakistan, including the 9/11 attacks, the London tube bombings, including innumerable attacks in India. Neither Trump nor Rubio, in their wisdom, have referred to Pakistan’s long history of support for global terrorism and cross-border terrorism against India. This will further encourage the jihadi elements in Pakistan’s army and its spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, to launch more acts of terrorism against India as well as globally.

One of the most serious blunders committed by Trump is to suggest that he will try to negotiate the Kashmir issue between the two countries. He made this faux pas during his first term also. While speaking with the then PM Imran Khan, he wrongly claimed that PM Modi had asked him to negotiate on the issue of Kashmir between the two countries. The US State Department had quickly sprung into action then to clarify that Kashmir is a bilateral issue to be resolved through negotiations between India and Pakistan. It would be prudent for the US State Department to once again dissuade Trump from following this disastrous path.

In any case India has made it amply clear that the only remaining issue on the Kashmir question is the return of illegally occupied POK by Pakistan to India. No other talks on Kashmir are necessary or will be held. Trump’s offer to negotiate can only further encourage the Pakistan army, ISI and terrorist groups supported, funded, financed and trained by them to launch more terrorist attacks against India, which will invite a crippling and debilitating action against these terror groups, as well as the Pakistani military establishment.

Trump has also made his ignorance about the Kashmir issue quite evident by stating that it is a ‘1000-year-old conflict’. He needs to be given some history lessons by the State Department to inform him that the issue emerged only in 1947 when the Pakistani army, in the guise of tribesmen, attacked the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir.

His tone while referring to PM Modi (and Pakistan PM Sharif) in his statements and messages was patronising, as if he was disciplining two wayward children. He also committed the mistake of equating PM Modi, the undisputed leader of the largest democracy in the world, India, with Shehbaz Sharif, an effete leader who lacks both power and authority in a country where the army has always ruled the roost.

Trump also stated that he used the instrument of trade to pressurise India and Pakistan to accede to the ceasefire. This is patently untrue. In his own first message he stated that trade was not discussed, and then, in his subsequent statements and comments, he came up with the idea of increasing trade with both countries.

India does not wish to be placed in a situation where it is pressurised to change its sovereign decisions related to its national interest, nor has it been the case this time. If Trump can ‘use trade’, he could also use the instrument of the supply of defence technology, defence equipment or critical and emerging technologies in the future. Certainly, national interests for India reign supreme, and Delhi will not get intimidated.

Trump’s dramatic shift on Pakistan—from his first term and PM Modi’s February 2025 visit to now—may plausibly stem from some business deals by his son and partners involving cryptocurrency and rare earth minerals.If such be the case, it casts a dark shadow over Trump’s reliability as a geopolitical and strategic partner to India.

Conclusion

By making statements like this, Trump has significantly eroded the trust quotient between India and the US. He has dealt a severe blow to the high level of confidence achieved between the two countries over the last 25 years. He has done huge harm and damage to the rapidly expanding and evolving bilateral relationship which PM Modi had termed as ‘’Indispensable Partnership’’ and a ‘’Partnership of Trust’’. The US will need to work hard to remove the cobwebs of doubt and misgivings to restore the relations to the earlier status of trust and confidence.

In the meantime, India will have to work relentlessly and vigorously to implement the agreements on trade, promoting the application of critical and emerging technologies in areas like defence, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum, biotechnology, energy and space; counter-terrorism; Indo-Pacific and the Quad, etc, that were reached during PM Modi’s visit to Washington DC in February, 2025.

In view of the recent trade deal with China in which China stood firm while Trump blinked, it is possible that Trump’s interest in energising and invigorating the Quad might also slacken. Under such a scenario, India will have to strengthen its bilateral and multilateral partnerships in strategic, security and economic spheres with emerging and significant powers like Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Russia, West Asia, Australia and others.

To realise its full potential, India will need to maintain peace, unity and harmony at home and undertake appropriate economic reforms and invest in R&D to grow at rates of 7-9 per cent and above. This will catapult India to a $10 trillion economy by 2032 or so and provide it with the requisite economic and military heft to fully safeguard its sovereignty against possible incursions from the North. It will also provide a much better standard of living than at present to its citizens.

A strong and multi-faceted India-US partnership is a win-win proposition for both the countries. Both of them need to put in the necessary effort to restore the earlier trust that existed between them.

The writer is executive council member, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, president, Institute of Global Studies, Distinguished Fellow, Ananta Aspen Centre, and former Ambassador of India to Kazakhstan, Sweden and Latvia. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.