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Over the past quarter century, Washington and New Delhi steadily built up what was often described as one of the most triumphant strategic partnerships to come out of the post–Cold War era. In recent weeks, however, those ties have hit one of their worst periods as mutual trust between the U.S. and India dissipates amid tariffs, oil sanctions, and realignments with Moscow and Beijing.

“We’re in a situation in the U.S.-India relationship where the premises and assumptions of the last 25 years — that everybody worked very hard to build, including the president in his first term — have just come completely unraveled,” said Evan Feigenbaum, a South Asia expert and vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The trust is gone.”

The rupture accelerated earlier this year when President Donald Trump decided to levy wide-ranging tariffs on Indian imports to pressure New Delhi to stop purchasing Russian crude oil as the war in Ukraine continued. The tariff, which started at 25 percent and is set to jump to 50 percent on August 27, has not only failed to dissuade India but appears to have driven it further into the arms of Moscow and, increasingly, Beijing.

Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval visited Moscow last month, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar held high-level talks with Russian officials in the Russian capital this week, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi just concluded a meeting in New Delhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will soon travel to China for the first time in more than seven years and is expected to visit Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the year. Analysts say the pivot to the East is not just posturing.

Indian public opinion has also turned sharply against what many Indians consider to be interference in its sovereign decision-making. “They’re signaling very clearly that they view that as interference in India’s foreign policy, and they are not going to put up with it,” Feigenbaum told Devex.

While there was reluctance in New Delhi at the outset of the war in Ukraine, state-run refiners are again importing Russian oil, enticed by a discount of between six and seven percent. The impact has been swift and significant: Russian oil now makes up 35 percent of India’s crude imports versus a pre-war level of just 0.2 percent. Russia has also opened the door to more. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov said the Kremlin will continue to export “crude, oil products, thermal coal and coking coal, and sees potential for the export of Russian LNG.”

Honeymoon Over

Michael Kugelman, an analyst based in Washington who focuses on South Asia, said the Trump tariffs were not the only cause of India’s overtures to Moscow and Beijing. “We’ve seen indications for almost a year of India wanting to ease tensions with China and strengthen relations, mainly for economic reasons. But the Trump administration’s policies have made India want to move even more quickly,” he told Devex.

Feigenbaum added that while some of New Delhi’s moves are likely for show, others are more permanent. “India is going to double down on some aspects of its economic and defense relationship with Russia — and those parts are not performative,” he said.

India had already been moving away from Russian defense systems before Russia invaded Ukraine, procuring equipment from the U.S., France, and Israel. But with the Ukraine war in full swing, energy trade with Moscow has flourished. Kugelman said India has taken that as a sign that “the U.S. can’t be trusted, whereas Russia can — because Russia is always going to be there for India no matter what.”

Modi has also seized on the opportunity to burnish his reputation among the Indian public as a defender of national sovereignty. He has underlined his focus on protecting the livelihoods of farmers, small businesses, and young workers, and in doing so has struck a chord at home. Kugelman said India had already given ground to Washington on issues like tariff reductions and repatriating foreign workers. “Because of those concessions, India needs to be careful about signaling further willingness to bend. This is one reason there was no trade deal — Modi put his foot down,” Kugelman said.

The White House has signaled growing impatience with India’s moves. Writing in the Financial Times, former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro described India’s purchase of Russian oil as “opportunistic” and “deeply corrosive to the U.S.-India relationship.” Trump’s tariffs were necessary, he added, because they hurt India “where it hurts — its access to U.S. markets — even as it seeks to cut off the financial lifeline it has extended to Russia’s war effort.”

U.S. and Indian leaders have reached similar inflection points before, to be sure. In 2008, the two countries clinched a civil nuclear deal that opened American markets to Indian fuel and technology despite New Delhi’s refusal to sign on to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Both sides managed to compartmentalize their differences, and that transaction did not derail the relationship.

The current conflict is of a different order. For more than a decade, beginning under Obama and continuing under Trump and now Biden, the U.S. has looked to India as a bulwark of democratic partnership in its Indo-Pacific strategy, a central counterweight to the rising power of China. As the rancor over energy sanctions and trade and diplomatic spats begin to seep into military and intelligence cooperation, that foundation is now in jeopardy.

“Countering China has been the glue binding this relationship,” Kugelman said. “But if the U.S.–India relationship continues this free fall, it will be very difficult to sustain.”