By Fareed Zakaria
The United States is often criticized for orienting itself toward the short term, for being too quick to change course. In fact, on important issues Washington has been remarkably consistent in its foreign policy. Consider the strategic outreach to India that began during the Clinton administration and was expanded in a bipartisan manner over 25 years – until now. President Donald Trump’s sudden, inexplicable hostility toward India reverses policies pursued under five administrations, including his own previous one. If this new attitude holds, it might be the biggest strategic mistake of his presidency so far.
After the Cold War, the United States began a sustained outreach approach toward India. President Bill Clinton’s successful visit in 2000 opened the possibility of a warm new relationship. The pivotal shift, though, happened under President George W. Bush. His administration recognized that a rising China was transforming the international system and that the single most important counterweight to China could be India, then the world’s second-most populous country, which was beginning to reform its economy and integrate with the world. A close relationship between Washington and New Delhi would be the key to preventing Chinese domination of Asia and securing American interests in the region.
There had been one big obstacle to such a partnership: India’s nuclear weapons program. In the interest of nonproliferation, Washington had imposed sanctions on India (and Pakistan) for conducting nuclear weapons tests. But the Bush administration, having decided that India should be treated as a great power, similarly to France or Britain or China, offered a historic nuclear deal that ended Indian isolation. This agreement, expertly navigated on the Indian side by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, marked a watershed in relations between the two countries.
After this, Washington and New Delhi grew closer on many dimensions. The Obama administration, viewing India as important to America’s pivot to Asia, supported India’s bid to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and greatly increased trade between the two economies. The first Trump administration took a further leap forward politically. It elevated the Quad – a defense-oriented group including the United States, Australia, Japan and India – and gave it more substance. Trump also delighted in his personal relationship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
President Joe Biden then built on Trump’s legacy, forging still greater cooperation in defense and economics. India planned to work with the United States in the manufacture of everything from fighter jets to computer chips. In the second quarter of this year, India exported more smartphones to the U.S. market than China did.
India is a prickly country. It was colonized and dominated by the West, ruled by Britain for two centuries. After India’s independence, the Soviet Union supported it unequivocally, while America gave money and arms to its adversarial neighbor, Pakistan. As a large, diverse and messy democracy, India has always had domestic interests that its leaders cannot ignore. Despite all this, Washington was able to nudge New Delhi closer and closer, so the two countries’ interests and actions were more aligned.
Enter Trump 2.0. With little warning, Trump has undone decades of painstaking work by U.S. diplomats. He placed India in the highest category of U.S. tariffs, now set to be 50 percent, in the company of Syria and Myanmar, while setting a 19 percent levy for Pakistan (which is now closely allied with China) and announcing joint, probably futile, efforts to look for oil there. He met with Pakistan’s army chief in private, and a Trump family-backed firm has had ties to the Pakistan Crypto Council – fueling suspicions that backroom deals were conducted.
Trump has called India’s economy “dead.” In fact, for several years, India has had the fastest-growing large economy in the world, now the fourth-largest. (It is poised to overtake Germany by 2028 to become No. 3, after the United States and China.) It is the second-largest importer of arms globally and has the second-largest number of smartphone users.
India has long sought to remain nonaligned. Under Modi, it embraced a variation called “multi-alignment,” which, theoretically, allows the country to maintain good ties with all sides. Persistent American diplomacy and the rise of China had been chipping away at this stance, and slowly but surely India had been developing closer ties with America. No more.
Even if Trump again reverses course, the damage has been done. Indians believe that the United States has shown its true colors: its unreliability, its willingness to treat its friends badly. They will understandably feel that, to hedge their bets, they need to stay close to Russia – and even make amends with China. The country is united in its shock and anger at Trump’s insulting behavior.
When I am in India, I often urge leaders there to forge closer ties with America, arguing that their destiny lies in a great partnership between the world’s oldest democracy and its largest one. Now, I must confess, it will be hard to persuade them to follow this advice.
Fareed Zakaria writes a foreign affairs column for The Post. He is also the host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS.
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