Can India Thrive in Trump’s World?

Why It Matters

Understanding Trump‑era volatility helps Indian policymakers calibrate their diplomatic strategy, ensuring that personal access translates into concrete trade and security benefits amid a shifting global order.

Key Takeaways

• Trump's unpredictable policy creates both challenges and openings for India.
• US-China strategy inconsistency fuels uncertainty in Indian foreign policy planning.
• Personal access to Trump remains crucial; ambassador Gore leveraged it effectively.
• India's shift toward self‑reliance aligns with global protectionist trends.
• Recent US‑India trade talks signal potential deepening despite diplomatic volatility.

Summary

The podcast examines how the second Trump administration reshapes India’s foreign policy landscape. Trump’s return has introduced a more transactional, personality‑driven diplomacy, marked by abrupt tariffs, selective engagement with multilateral institutions, and an erratic China strategy that leaves Delhi scrambling to reassess its assumptions about Washington’s priorities. Key insights include the administration’s inconsistent stance on China—oscillating between hard‑line rhetoric, Huawei bans, and concessions on critical minerals—while simultaneously pursuing a personalist approach that rewards direct access to the president. India’s longstanding reliance on personal channels resurfaced with the appointment of Sergio Gore, a Trump‑trusted White House staffer, whose rapid outreach produced a notional trade deal and an invitation to the “Pax Silica” initiative. The discussion highlights concrete examples: the 50 % tariff episode, the ambassadorship shift, and the flurry of senior U.S. defense and commerce officials visiting Delhi. Scholars also trace India’s broader “inward turn” since 2015‑17, driven by global protectionism and a renewed emphasis on self‑reliance (Atmanirbhar), which dovetails with Trump‑era pressures. Implications are clear: India must balance its self‑reliant agenda with the need to cultivate personal ties in Washington, navigating an unpredictable U.S. stance on China while capitalizing on any diplomatic openings. Success will depend on leveraging champions like Ambassador Gore and translating high‑level access into tangible economic and security gains.

Original Description

Donald Trump’s return to the White House has once again altered the contours of international politics. The second Trump administration has adopted a more assertive and unpredictable approach to U.S. foreign policy—deploying tariffs and other economic tools against both rivals and partners, expressing open hostility toward multilateral institutions, and pursuing a highly transactional, personalized style of diplomacy.

These developments have unfolded amid intensifying geopolitical competition and the weakening of the post–Cold War international system, contributing to a more fluid and uncertain global order.

For India, this evolving context raises several important questions about the viability of its foreign policy approach. To what extent is Trump 2.0 disrupting the foundations of India’s approach to the world, and where is it instead reinforcing longer-term trends that were already underway?

A new compilation published by the Carnegie Endowment, “India and a Changing Global Order: Foreign Policy in the Trump 2.0 Era” examines how the early phase of the second Trump administration has shaped India’s foreign policy across key regions and issue areas.

This week on the podcast, Milan sits down with three of the contributors to this compilation—Shoumitro Chatterjee, Sameer Lalwani, and Tanvi Madan—to discuss the uncertain trajectory of Indian foreign policy.

Shoumitro Chatterjee is a nonresident scholar in the Carnegie South Asia Program and an assistant professor of international economics at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. Sameer Lalwani is a non-resident senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund Indo-Pacific Program and a research affiliate with the MIT Security Studies Program. And Tanvi Madan is a senior fellow in the Center for Asia Policy Studies in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

Milan and his trio of guests discuss Trump’s volatile China policy, India’s recent decisions to partially roll back restrictions on Chinese trade and investment, the country’s sudden openness to new trade deals, and India’s need to invest more in relations with the U.S. Congress.

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