Vance’s visit suggests India isn’t just a balancer now, it’s a key partner – Firstpost

US Vice President JD Vance, his Indian-origin wife Usha Vance and their three adorable children are hogging all the limelight in the Indian media currently. This is the first time that Vance is on a visit to India — and it is one of his early bilateral visits to any country.

This visit is interesting for many reasons, coming in the shadow of Donald Trump’s tariffs, where India has faced a 26 per cent reciprocal tariff from the current administration. But judging the state of India-US relations only on this basis will be sheer myopia because there is enough evidence to suggest that the two countries are currently enjoying a rare momentum pushing their convergence in almost every domain forward. The bitterness of Biden’s term in power is finally behind us; there is now a much supportive government at the helm for India’s great power ambitions in Washington.

Since the beginning of the current century, almost every single administration in the US has recognised India’s potential to offset Beijing’s influence in Asia. If China has a large geography, population, and commanding military power, then its only proportionate match in Asia must be India. With this mindset, starting from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, almost all American presidents have preferred to pursue good relations with India but by treating it as a mere balancing power in the region. Especially in the last four years, India’s treatment as just a regional or a balancing force has been most apparent by the United States. This is because there has been a deep-rooted aversion in the country to a multipolar world where the doctrine of strategic utility dictates India to be treated nicely to balance China but only under the wider umbrella of a unipolar American world. The worst sign of this behaviour was on display in the year 2024 itself when the American deep state dethroned an India-friendly regime in Bangladesh only to replace it with the Islamists who have started to fall completely in the China-Pakistan axis now.

However, this aversion to a multipolar world shown by subsequent American leaders is not acceptable to India, especially to someone like the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose foreign policy is impinged on projecting India as an independent power in a multipolar world. Many are still not aware that one of the first things he did after coming to power was to tell his diplomatic dispensation clearly to project India as a ‘leading power’ in its own right and not merely as a balancing force in the current geopolitical dynamics. This assertion was further explained by his external affairs minister, Dr. S Jaishankar, who once outlined during an event that provided India’s economic and military weight, it has the right to be seen as a legitimate independent pole in international politics and not a country that has to choose sides between US and China in the new Cold War.

This worldview of PM Modi is starkly different from the previous Indian governments that had maintained ambiguity around India’s position in the greater scheme of things. But unlike the leaders before Modi who never articulated a clear vision for India as a potential great power, PM Modi has done a great job in not only voicing the ambitions but has also backed it with a great deal of efforts. He is by all measures the first Indian leader to ever initiate so many flagship programs to build India’s comprehensive strategic power one where self-reliance in defence and manufacturing is key. Not to forget his vision to build massive infrastructure which can unlock high growth rates for India making it the only other economy besides the US and China to cross $10 trillion GDP in the coming decade. Even his emphasis on a nationalist approach to international politics which he calls as the ‘India First’ foreign policy is significant. Interestingly, Modi’s ‘India First’ is a predecessor of Trump’s ‘America First’ policy. Modi, after all, had come to power before Trump and it was only in 2016 during a speech in Washington DC that Trump for the first time had articulated it while running for the Presidential office.

Ironically, despite both leaders placing their own countries in a position of priority, their ideas are not at all counter to each other. In a truly multipolar world, both these policies cannot only co-exist but also complement each other a great deal. This is because both Trump and Modi have a similar worldview of the good old great power-driven international system, where focus is on building one’s own economic and military strength without tangling too much in globalism or multilateral commitments. But this does not mean that one does not indulge in meaningful transactionalism with like-minded countries. Nothing explains this better than Modi’s preference for engaging with each great power on its merit, instead of the West-style alliance building that works by laying down exclusionary and normative rules of who is a legitimate great power and who is not. Or, one that imposes silly definitions of who is a democracy and then goes on to wield the ‘human rights’ card for merely following an independent course of action. No wonder India’s relations with the West got strained when a war between Ukraine and Russia broke out and West started to name and shame India on an ideological basis.

Unlike the Biden administration that left no opportunity to question India’s commitment to the bilateral relationship just because the Modi government had refused to take sides against Russia, Trump even in his previous term was someone who completely understood India’s prerogative. It was his administration that had given a sanction waver to India over procuring S-400 missile system from Russia, completely mindful of the fact that it would strengthen an ally in taking on China. Also, it was the Trump administration only that oversaw revival of the Quad initiative, gave official seal of approval to ‘Indo-Pacific’ as a common strategic space and heralded India as an essential pillar in its national security strategy.

In the second term, as the contours of an unfolding geopolitical rivalry between the United States and China are becoming clear, Trump’s choice of partner again is going to be India. Vance’s choice to make the country an early destination of his visit is a signal towards the same. Unlike the previous administrations that considered India as a mere balancing force, the Trump administration views India as a prospective market of 1.4 billion consumers and a diplomatic and military heavyweight. Also, unlike other leaders who considered India’s independent streak as a threat to Americanism, Trump considers strategic autonomy displayed by India as a useful trait. After all, while the freeloaders in Western Europe have lived in the heavily subsidised American security umbrella for so long, India is a potential ally that has a lot of self-respect in paying up its share. It is visible in Modi’s resolve to transform India into a formidable great power in the Indo-Pacific, one which has its own military strength to defend its interests. It is only befitting that today the Europeans are being chided to spend on their own security by the Trump administration while India’s status as an independent power is being well appreciated.

At the current juncture, when the limits of the US’s ability are being tested every day as a receding superpower, it needs more allies like India and certainly not less. In fact, with the overall visions of the two leaders, PM Modi and President Trump in perfect consonance with each other, India is all set to become indispensable to Trump’s long game. Signs of this are already visible, where if Trump 1.0 was all about a burgeoning defence partnership then Trump 2.0 has opened doors for a blooming trade relationship as well. Especially as Trumpian tariffs have handed out a devastating blow to China’s status as a world factory, India’s relatively cheap labour force, Modi’s emphasis on Make in India and the country’s vast middle class market has suddenly become irresistibly alluring to American companies.

A trade agreement is one of the priority agenda items on Vice President Vance’s itinerary. Following a meeting between him and PM Modi, both countries have officially agreed on the basic guidelines for the trade pact negotiations. These terms of references and its outcome in the form of a trade agreement will be a part of the broader ‘Catalysing Opportunities for Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce & Technology’ (COMPACT) programme launched in February 2025 as a strategic framework to guide India-US relations in the 21st century by PM Modi and President Trump during former’s visit to Washington. It is the most comprehensive effort till date to build closer relations between the two countries with defence convergence, trade and transfer of key technology as its important pillars. On one hand, it will allow the US to benefit from the military sales to the world’s biggest customer of arms but it will also propel India to become a part of the global supply chains and benefit from the sophisticated technological transfers which US is not willing to share with a lot of countries currently.

China is closely watching Vance’s trip to India but it has little choice except seeing this close cooperation unfold between India and the US. On its part, Beijing has issued a warning days ahead of this visit cautioning countries to not enter into trade negotiations at its expense with the United States. But then the current Indian government does not have a very good record of bowing to threats because India’s national interest is all that it has chased since the last decade.

The author is a New Delhi-based commentator on geopolitics and foreign policy. She holds a PhD from the Department of International Relations, South Asian University. She tweets @TrulyMonica. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.