'Trump squandered trust': Onus on US to repair India ties, says policy expert Michael Kugelman
Trade deal can be "a confidence-building measure”, says Michael Kugelman, Senior Fellow at Atlantic Council, at Hindustan Times Leadership Summit
Top foreign policy analyst Michael Kugelman said on Saturday that the “onus is on the United States” to repair its relationship with India and “win back its goodwill”, after Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff policy.
The Trump administration "squandered a huge amount of trust” with India by imposing massive trade tariffs, said Kugelman, Senior Fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council, Washington DC. He was speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2025 in New Delhi.
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He said the trade deal being negotiated currently “could help”. “It will certainly be a confidence-building measure,” Kugelman said.
He was in conversation with Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, South Asia Practice Head, Eurasia Group. Also on the panel was Kate Sullivan de Estrada, Associate Professor, International Relations (South Asia), University Of Oxford.
“India and US relations reached a crisis after the Trump administration singled out India as a core offender by being a country that has economic policies and features which do not favour the Trump administration,” Kugelman said on the transactional nature of US foreign policy at present.
Tensions escalated after India did not make concessions that the Trump administration would have wanted, Kugelman noted: “Despite all of these concerns, there is a desire to work with India in (Washington) DC." He said there is a difference between the White House’s thinking and that of other parts of the US policy regime.
Talks for a deal are currently ongoing after a major hiccup in August following Trump's move to impose a massive 50% tariff rate on India, half of that as “penalty” for India's oil purchases from Russia.
India has underlined its long-held relationship with Russia, reflected in the visit by President Vladimir Putin this week.
‘India has played a very strong game’: Kate Sullivan de Estrada on China reset
In the context of this tension with the US, Kate Sullivan de Estrada explained why a UK-India trade deal worked out at the same time.
“The two sides (India and the UK) come together to understand each other better, which is the same approach as the trade deal between India and the European Union,” she said at the HTLS 2025 session.
She also said it is “imperative” for India to have good relations with China at such a time. “India has played a very strong game of leveraging US concerns about China to build strong relations,” she added.
“But what we have seen with Trump's gravitation — from a more geopolitical view of the world to a more economic, transactional one — is that he sees relations with China in a more positive light, and maybe India matters less (to him),” she further said.
