Just days after his jibe on Truth Social that the United States had “lost” India and Russia to “deepest, darkest, China” — a reference to an image of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Russian President Vladimir Putin posing together at the recently held Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin, China — U.S. President Donald Trump had some warm words for New Delhi.
In a notable shift in tone, Trump described Modi as a “great Prime Minister” and described India-U.S. relations as experiencing a “momentary hiccup.” There was “nothing to worry about” in the bilateral relationship, he said.
New Delhi was quick to grab what seemed like an olive branch. Modi reaffirmed the “special relationship,” adding that he “fully reciprocated” Trump’s positive assessment of the bilateral relationship.
The warm words exchanged by the two leaders appear to be the first tentative signs of a thaw in the chill that had gripped India-U.S. relations in recent months.
The fraying of India-U.S. ties was reflected in the harsh words that Trump and several top U.S. officials have been directing at India. Relations plunged to an all-time low when Trump imposed additional tariffs to punish India for its purchases of discounted Russian oil. Trump’s overt pique with India, possibly because New Delhi has repeatedly rejected his claims of having mediated the India-Pakistan ceasefire, further complicates the present scenario.
While the recent tension in India-U.S. relations is mainly about the tariffs, as India’s Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal said recently, a “little bit of geopolitical issues” had derailed trade talks. He was likely alluding to Washington’s growing closeness to Pakistan. However, India would finalize a trade deal with the U.S. by November, he said.
With the U.S. negotiators’ visit to New Delhi — originally set for August 25-30 — indefinitely postponed, and no date fixed for the sixth round, and Trump reportedly rejecting the proposed Indian trade deal presented by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, the November deadline seems ambitious.
Against this grim backdrop, Trump’s sudden softening of words on India-U.S. ties raises an important question – what caused his adoption of a more flexible stance toward India late last week?
It was likely the culmination of New Delhi’s ongoing engagement with the U.S. on many fronts, well beyond the executive branch.
Amid heightened tensions with the Trump administration, the Indian embassy in Washington, D.C. hired Mercury Public Affairs. The firm, which employs former Republican Congressman and Senator for Louisiana David Vitter, is reported to have close ties with Trump, including his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who was a registered lobbyist there until late 2024.
Meanwhile, in a span of just 15 days last month, Indian Ambassador to the U.S. Vinay Mohan Kwatra met 19 U.S. senators and representatives, reflecting New Delhi’s intensified diplomatic outreach in Washington beyond the White House. His more recent engagements with members of the U.S. Congress include meetings with Rep. Gregory Meeks, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; Rep. Carol Miller, chair of the Congressional Energy Export Caucus; Rep. Mike Kelly, chair of the Subcommittee on Taxation; and Rep. Blake Moore, vice chair of both the House Republican Conference and the House Republican Steering Committee, among others. The frequency of the visits indicates that rather than regular diplomacy, the visits were targeted interventions serving as a reminder of the strong bipartisan support India enjoys.
Finally, although the sequence of events remains unclear, it is unlikely that Trump’s unexpected shift in attitude is unrelated to his meeting with lobbyist Jason Miller, whose services India hired earlier this year. Notably, Miller served as the chief spokesman for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and was senior advisor to his 2020 re-election campaign.
Despite Trump’s propensity to turn U.S. diplomacy into a “one-man reality show,” the fact remains that several actors determine the dynamics of the bilateral relationship. The India lobby – through the India Caucus, Indian–American political organizations, and firms hired by the Modi government – has long been a powerful tool for diplomatic engagement. Interestingly, the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans remains the largest country-specific caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives ever since it was established in 1993.
For all the noise surrounding India-U.S. ties, history shows that the only constant in this bilateral relationship has been uncertainty. The U.S. Congress and four successive U.S. administrations, including Trump’s own first term as president, have acted decisively to broaden and deepen U.S. engagement with India, despite turbulence. Claims that Trump’s rhetoric and anti-India measures had reversed decades of progress in bilateral relations that were achieved through painstaking diplomacy risks reducing the bilateral relationship to transient political postures. Judging the strength of the relationship based simply on how some of the actors involved are behaving provides an incomplete, possibly incorrect, picture.
Strategically, Washington and New Delhi still share the same views on the challenges posed by an assertive China, which has been a driver of bilateral cooperation. Despite the cautious Sino-Indian reset, fundamental differences persist and the border dispute continues to cast a shadow on reconciliation. For New Delhi, competition with China for influence in the Indian Ocean region immediately, and the Global South more broadly, will remain a driver of convergence with the U.S. for the foreseeable future.
With Modi skipping the upcoming U.N. General Assembly summit in New York and Trump unlikely to visit India for the Quad summit, prospects for a Modi–Trump meeting remain low, leaving no clear path to restoring normal ties. Whether the existing frictions are momentary or will push India-U.S. ties into a sustained period of backsliding remains to be seen.
However, New Delhi’s history of multi-faceted engagement and the whole-of-government approach may help it wade through the Trump administration’s personalized and unpredictable policymaking process, without lasting long-term damage. Meanwhile, in the short term, Sergio Gor’s recent appointment as the ambassador to India and his well-recorded close ties with Trump, giving him direct access to the president, could bring in some stability.