.

The latest blow, Feigenbaum said, is President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Indian imports imposed in retaliation for New Delhi continuing to buy Russian crude despite the war in Ukraine. The duties began in June at 25 percent and will increase to 50 percent on August 27. “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,” he said.

The Indian foreign minister visited Moscow last week, and President Vladimir Putin has expressed an interest in hosting Prime Minister Narendra Modi by year’s end. Modi, who hasn’t visited China since 2015, is expected to travel there in the coming weeks. Both moves signal that New Delhi is deepening relations with its two nuclear-armed neighbors after ties with Washington plunged to their lowest level in years.

U.S. critics from across the political spectrum, such as White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, have been alarmed by India’s oil purchases from Russia. In an opinion piece published last week in the Financial Times, Navarro called the buy a “betrayal” and an “act of pure opportunism … deeply corrosive.”

Domestic Dissent and Diplomatic Drift

Trump’s tariffs and India’s domestic politics are both to blame for its increasing tilt toward Beijing and Moscow, said Michael Kugelman, the South Asia expert at the Wilson Center in Washington.

“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.

India has reduced its dependence on Russian weapons in recent years, buying American, French, and Israeli equipment instead. But since Russia invaded Ukraine, the country’s imports of Russian oil have exploded: From just 0.2 percent of the total before the war, Moscow now provides about a third of India’s crude imports, a jump buoyed by discounts of 6 to 7 percent that Moscow is now offering.

India’s oil purchases from Russia are among the few concrete measures Modi can take to deflect blame at home that he is bending too far to U.S. pressure. “Modi cares about his image as someone who projects independence,” Kugelman said. “And there is also the whole issue of protecting the livelihoods of farmers, small businesses, blue-collar workers, and job aspirants. This has a strong emotive charge in India, politically.”

India had already made concessions to the United States on many issues before the Ukraine conflict began, including tariff reductions and worker repatriation. “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. India has reduced its dependence on Russian weapons in recent years, buying American, French, and Israeli equipment instead.

Uncertain Partnership

U.S.–India ties are no longer as strong as they once were, but that doesn’t mean Delhi was ever completely aligned with Washington on global issues. During a visit to the George W. Bush White House early in his second term, Modi said that he was not going to join Obama’s alliance of Pacific democracies if China’s objections were a precondition.

Washington has long seen India as a vital counterbalance to China in the Indo-Pacific strategy aggressively pursued by the Trump and Biden administrations, as well as Obama. Ties have been tested before, but the current split in areas of defense and intelligence cooperation as well is different and causes for concern.