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The U.S. and India have had what was, for most of the past two decades, one of the best partnerships in the post–Cold War period, particularly about strategy and security. But that relationship has hit one of its roughest patches as mutual trust plummets in response to tariffs on Indian goods, oil transactions with Russia, and other issues.

“The worst is probably yet to come because this is very much a work in progress,” Evan Feigenbaum, a South Asia analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Foreign Policy. “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. The trust is gone.”

In June, the United States announced tariffs of 25 percent on a range of imports from India in response to New Delhi’s continued purchase of Russian oil despite the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. The tariff is scheduled to increase to 50 percent on August 27. But rather than deter India from buying Russian energy, the move is driving Delhi even closer to Moscow and even Beijing.

India’s national security adviser visited Moscow just last week, and Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar held talks in the Russian capital earlier this month. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also wrapped up a visit to New Delhi this week, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to travel to China for the first time in more than seven years in the coming weeks. Russian President Vladimir Putin is also expected to host Modi in Moscow later this year. Analysts say there is more to these moves than just symbolism.

India also senses that U.S. actions over the past year have been thumbing their nose at Indian autonomy. “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 said.

India’s state-run refiners, after initially hesitating at the beginning of the war, resumed purchases of Russian oil after Moscow offered discounts of six to seven percent. Russia now provides 35 percent of India’s oil imports, up from 0.2 percent before the war in Ukraine, and Russian officials have encouraged New Delhi to buy even more. Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov said that Moscow will continue to send crude to India and is willing to supply other energy, “oil products, thermal and coking coal, and also sees potential for the export of Russian LNG.”

Domestic Politics and Strategic Choices

Michael Kugelman, an analyst at the Washington-based Wilson Center, said that Trump’s tariffs were not the only reason India is recalibrating its approach to the United States. “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,” Kugelman said.

Kugelman said that while some of the recent actions were probably mere diplomatic signaling, others were more consequential. “India is going to double down on some aspects of its economic and defense relationship with Russia — and those parts are not performative,” he added.

India was already looking to diversify away from Russian weapons before the Ukraine war, and had already begun replacing Russian equipment with U.S., French, and Israeli systems. But after the invasion began, energy deals with Moscow spiked. “This all validates the thinking for some in India that the U.S. can’t be trusted, whereas Russia can — because Russia is always going to be there for India no matter what,” Kugelman said.

Modi in particular has been using the occasion to project an image domestically as a leader committed to standing up for his country’s interests. He has also been at pains to stress that his government has been acting on behalf of Indian farmers, small businesses, and young workers who he said had been “harmed the most by these mindless wars and sanctions.” The point has clear resonance for Modi at home. “India had already given quite a bit to the United States,” Kugelman noted, citing examples including tariff cuts and allowing U.S. companies to bring Indian workers to the United States. “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.”

In Washington, there is increasing frustration with New Delhi. Peter Navarro, a former White House trade adviser, writing in the Financial Times, called India’s energy purchases from Russia “opportunistic” and “deeply corrosive to U.S. and allied efforts.” The tariffs, he said, were needed to “hit 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.”

The state of the relationship is in contrast to some of the high points in the past 20 years, including the 2008 U.S.-India civil nuclear deal that brought India into the American commercial nuclear market despite the country not being a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Then, both countries were able to compartmentalize their differences to the point where they did not damage cooperation in other areas.