From ‘great friend Modi’ to 50% tariffs: Decoding India-US ties in the Trump era

Some relationships are hard to decipher: full of contradictions, confusing signals, and mood swings. Yet people stick with them, hoping that someday the pieces will click into place. That’s precisely how the India–United States relationship feels like today. Once feted as a natural marriage of the world’s two biggest democracies, relations between New Delhi and Washington nowadays seem querulous, unpredictable and hostage to the fluctuations in US President Donald Trump’s mood. In fact, a partnership that experienced its heyday in public bonhomie and conjoined strategic interests seems increasingly held hostage to transactional politics and personal ego. When the US went…