New York/Washington | US President Donald Trump's policies towards India are doing “real and lasting damage” to the strategic trust and mutual understanding, a top US lawmaker has said, underlining that Washington must move with “incredible urgency” to mitigate the damage done to bilateral ties.
“...Unless he changes course, Trump will be the American President that lost India, or more accurately, that chased India away while revitalising the Russian Empire, while breaking up the Transatlantic Alliance and menacing Latin America. That is not a legacy any President should be excited about having,” Democratic Congresswoman from California Sydney Kamlager-Dove said Wednesday.
“When the history books are written about where Trump's antagonism towards India began, they will point to something that has nothing to do with our long-term strategic interests - his personal obsession with a Nobel Peace Prize. While that is laughable, the harm that it will cause is not,” she said.
Trump has said that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for ending conflicts around the world, including the fighting between India and Pakistan in May this year.
Kamlager-Dove, a Ranking Member, was addressing the House Foreign Affairs South and Central Asia Subcommittee hearing titled 'The US–India Strategic Partnership: Securing a Free and Open Indo-Pacific.' The hearing heard from witnesses, Director of Asian Studies Centre, Heritage Foundation, Jeff Smith, Executive Director of the Observer Research Foundation America, Dhruva Jaishankar and External Senior Advisor, Special Competitive Studies Project Senior Fellow, Indo-Pacific Programme, German Marshall Fund of the United States, Sameer Lalwani.
Kamlager-Dove lashed out at Trump for his policies towards India, including the 50 per cent tariffs on New Delhi, the highest in the world and the USD 100,000 fee on H1B visas that are used by a large number of Indians to live and work in the US.
“Trump's policies towards India can only be described as ‘cutting our nose to spite our face'. And this is doing real and lasting damage to the strategic trust and mutual understanding between our two countries," Kamlager-Dove said.
"Because let me be clear, being a coercive partner has a cost. And this poster is worth a thousand words,” she said, displaying a photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin travelling together in a car in New Delhi after the Indian leader personally received the Russian President at the Palam Airport.
Last week, Putin was in India on a State visit for the annual India-Russia Summit.
“You do not get a Nobel Peace Prize by driving US strategic partners into the arms of our adversaries. We must move with incredible urgency to mitigate the damage that this administration has done to the US-India partnership and return to the cooperation that is essential to US prosperity, security and global leadership. Congress understands the stake of this relationship on a bipartisan basis,” she said.
Kamlager-Dove slammed the Trump administration for “flushing” away years of efforts that went into strengthening the India-US partnership.
“Successive presidential administrations of both political parties have devoted years of painstaking work to build trust and deepen cooperation between our two countries. When Trump took office at the beginning of this year, the Biden administration handed him a bilateral relationship at the height of its strength, a revitalised Quad, a budding defence tech partnership and a trusted supply chain partner.
“These were hard-earned accomplishments and the product of strategic discipline from our two countries. And then what happened? Flush, flush, flush down the toilet the capital that Americans have built over decades, in service of Trump's personal grievances and at the expense of our national interests,” she said.
Kamlager-Dove cautioned that the strategic convergence between the US and India at a time of heightened international competition is enduring, but it “certainly cannot be taken for granted.” She also called out Trump for “singling out” India for 50 per cent tariffs, one of the highest rates imposed on any country, saying this has “effectively derailed leader-level meetings between our two countries.” She noted that the annual Quad Leaders' Summit, “one of the most important unity-projecting platforms for the US and our Indo-Pacific partners, has been "indefinitely postponed”.
“This has sent a dangerous signal to our allies and China about the US withdrawal from our most pressing interests on the world stage,” she said.
The 2025 Quad Leaders' Summit was due to be held in India after the 2024 summit was hosted in Wilmington, Delaware. However, the dates for the summit in India are yet to be announced.
Apart from tariffs, she said that Trump has also “attacked” people-to-people ties between the US and India, with measures such as the USD 100,000 fee on H1B visas, 70 per cent of which are held by Indians.
She described it as “a rebuke of the incredible contributions Indians have made to science, technology, medicine and arts in the United States.” She stressed that the US relationship with India will be “defining" for both countries in how “we are placing ourselves in the 21st century world order.” She emphasised that working with India through the Quad grouping that also includes Australia and Japan, helps maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific and enhances the regional influence of the United States and its partners.
