Wrong Tune, Wrong Time: India Rejected Trump’s Misadventures
Wrong Tune, Wrong Time: India Rejected Trump’s Misadventures
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THIS IS AN ARTICLE WRITTEN PURELY AS AN OPINION OF CURRENT AFFAIRS BY THE AUTHOR
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13 July 2025
Last Updated: 4 August 2025 - 20:47 IST
Chaitanya Nitin Harak
PM Modi explaining the Wheel of Life to President Trump and First Lady of the US | PM Office
In July 2025, Donald Trump turned his digital megaphone toward two of the world’s largest nations and sneered: “They can take their dead economies down together.” The target was India — specifically its continued purchase of discounted Russian oil, which Trump had vowed to crush as part of his re-escalated campaign to isolate Moscow. Within days, his administration imposed a 25% tariff on Indian exports and floated the idea of secondary sanctions. The intended message was clear: fall in line with American pressure, or face the consequences.
India didn’t budge. It didn’t break with Moscow, didn’t apologize, didn’t flinch. It didn’t escalate either. What it is doing, instead, is quietly continuing doing what it’s always done — act in its own interest. Trump has mistaken this for betrayal. In reality, it is strategic autonomy in action. And in the end, as so often happens with Trump’s foreign policy, the threat seems to be fading, the follow-through fizzling, and India — once again — calling his bluff.
India–Russia: A Legacy That Outlasts Leaders
India’s ties with Russia aren’t about loyalty or ideology — they’re about inertia and leverage. Since the Cold War, Moscow has been New Delhi’s most consistent defense partner, accounting for over 60% of India’s military hardware. When the West shut India out of the advanced arms markets for decades, it was Russia that filled the gap — from MiG fighters to BrahMos missiles.
More recently, the relationship has taken on a transactional dimension. Following the Ukraine invasion, as Europe cut itself off from Russian energy, India stepped in — not out of alignment with the Kremlin’s worldview, but because the math made sense. Russian crude was selling at a steep discount, and India, the world’s third-largest oil importer, wasn’t going to ignore that. By 2025, Moscow had become India’s top oil supplier, delivering nearly two million barrels per day.
But none of this amounts to a pivot. India has neither endorsed Putin’s invasion nor expanded defense cooperation beyond what’s already in the pipeline. It abstains at the UN, engages in BRICS and SCO summits, and keeps a steady distance. There’s no ideological warmth — only realism. And realism cuts both ways: when Russian oil stopped being deeply discounted earlier this year, Indian state refiners cut their purchases without any prompting from Washington. That’s not allegiance — that’s autonomy.
What Trump Got Wrong About India
Trump’s strategy — if it can be called that — rests on a basic misreading: that India could be bullied out of its Russia relationship. He believes that threats, tariffs, and public shaming could force New Delhi to break with Moscow. But India isn’t some junior partner in an alliance system. It’s a civilizational state with a long memory, deep skepticism of Western pressure, and a foreign policy shaped more by pragmatism than partnerships.
The Tariffs
On July 30, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on Indian goods against the import tariffs in India on American goods, with additional penalties in relation to purchases of , citing continued oil imports from Russia. The move was aimed as clearly punitive — an economic shot across the bow meant to compel compliance. But it backfired almost immediately. Indian exporters shrugged. Oil contracts remain intact. No public shift in policy occurred. That same week, Indian officials have reiterated: energy decisions are guided by “cost, not coercion.”
The Coercion
External Affairs Minister of India - S. Jaishankar | PIB
India hasn’t just resisted pressure — it actively rebuffed Washington’s overtures. Case in point: the F-35 fighter jet offer, long considered the crown jewel of U.S. defense exports. In August 2025, India publicly declined the deal, signaling its unwillingness to tether its air force to a platform tied to end-use monitoring and political strings. This wasn’t a rejection of U.S. partnership — it was a rejection of conditionality.
TACO Diplomacy
Trump’s style has always been more performance than policy. When India doesn’t comply immediately, he lashes out online. But beyond the tariffs and noise, there is little of substance. No viable energy alternative was offered. No strategic dialogue was initiated. Just pressure — and then, predictably, a quiet withdrawal. This is a pattern online critics like to call TACO diplomacy: “Trump Always Chickens Out”. Loud threats. Zero staying power. India didn’t have to escalate. It didn’t have to realign. It simply waited — and watched Trump walk himself into a corner.
The TACO Problem: Trump Always Chickens Out
For all his aggressive rhetoric, Trump’s foreign policy is marked less by resolve than retreat. When allies defy him, he blusters; when they hold their ground, he backs off. India saw this playbook coming from a mile away. The tariff threats, the taunts, the warnings of secondary sanctions — none of it was new, and none of it landed. Trump has made a career of picking fights he doesn’t finish. And in India's case, New Delhi didn't even bother to engage.
This wasn’t just a tactical misstep — it was strategic predictability. Trump postured, India stayed silent, and the supposed showdown fizzled. The oil keeps flowing. Military ties with Russia aren’t deepening, but neither will they be dismantled. Trump had drawn a red line and, once again, he seems to have walked away from it.
The irony is that India didn’t escalate the situation because it didn’t need to. It understood that Trump’s pressure would evaporate, and that his administration lacked the policy depth to follow through. The criticisms evidently hold true: Trump Always Chickens Out. India didn’t need to resist U.S. demands so much as it watched them collapse under their own weight.
Trump Couldn’t Crack the Indian State
Trump’s core mistake was treating India like a country that could be flipped. But India doesn’t do flips — it does hedges. It doesn't pivot under pressure, it adjusts under principle. And those principles are clear: strategic independence, multipolar engagement, and self-reliance in defense and energy policy.
This is why India said no to the F-35s — not because it prefers Russian jets, but because it rejects hardware wrapped in surveillance and conditionality. This is why it continues buying Russian oil when it's cheap — and cuts back when it’s not. This is why it won’t sign on to U.S.-led blocs or Russian-led alternatives. It’s not playing both sides — it’s keeping both at a distance.
India is diversifying. It's buying more from France and Israel, increasing domestic defense production, and sourcing energy from the Gulf. But it’s doing this on its own timeline, not in reaction to Trump’s deadlines. The goal isn’t to please Washington or protect Moscow — it’s to preserve flexibility. In the 21st century, India doesn’t want to be anyone’s permanent partner. It wants to be indispensable and unaligned.
Conclusion: Trump Tried Charming India with a Flute - Yet His Own Rats Followed
Trump tried to play the Pied Piper — charming India with promises, threatening it with sanctions, and assuming his music would pull New Delhi away from Moscow. But the tune never resonated. India didn’t move. It listened, calculated, and it is walking its own path. Instead, it was Trump’s own side that danced. His trade threats undercut American farmers. His erratic diplomacy unnerved his defense contractors and longtime India watchers in Washington. And his final tantrum — lumping India in with a "dying Russia" — shows just how much he misunderstands both India's pride and its priorities.
He tried to lead India with a flute — but all he is summoning are the unintended consequences at home. The audience he wanted never followed. And the audience he had only made the music sound more out of tune.
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