By Abhiji Roy
Colombo, May 13 – India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it clear in his address on Monday that India remains committed to the policy of zero tolerance to cross-border terrorism, to no trade with Pakistan so long as there is terrorism and also no water will be given to that country from the river Indus as long as blood flows on the border. He will not be deterred by Pakistan’s flashing the nuclear weapons card.
Resolute words of continuity that will assuage the feelings of his followers at home enraged by the terrorist act of April 22 in Pahalgam.
Be that as it may, India’s foreign relations have undergone profound changes due to the short but intense war. US President Donald Trump has equated India and Pakistan, hurting India’s ego. He is talking of mediation on Kashmir which is anathema for New Delhi. He is talking of trade deals with both India and Pakistan, putting the two in the same basket regardless of their relative size and importance.
A US-China trade deal has been struck while a trade deal with India is still in the initial stages of discussion fraught with sticky issues. The US has shown a clear preference for China over India, which may have geopolitical consequences for India’s bid to be a South Asian hegemon.
Although the US has touted India as America’s strategic ally and India is a member of the anti-China QUAD, India no longer enjoys primacy vis-à-vis its regional rivals, Pakistan and China as far as the world’s super power the US is concerned.
Trump rubbed salt into India’s wounds when he declared that he will mediate between India and Pakistan to solve the Kashmir dispute, when India’s stated position for decades has been that all India-Pakistan problems should be solved bilaterally.
Pakistan had declared that it was withdrawing from the 1972 Simla agreement with India after India put the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance after the Pahalgam attack on April 22. The Simla agreement stipulated that all bilateral Indo-Pak issues including Kashmir should be discussed without third party involvement and that the Line of Control in Kashmir should be inviolable.
No US statement has criticised Pakistan for its alleged promotion of cross border terrorism, or criticised it for the abrogation of the Simla agreement. Pakistan abrogated the Simla agreement perhaps because it opens the door to US mediation. And this suits Trump’s plan to mediate. The ground now appears to have slipped from under India’s feet.
India doesn’t Accept US Role in Ceasefire, Pakistan Does
Trump had said that a “full and immediate ceasefire” had been reached “after a long night of talks mediated by the United States”. US Vice-President J.D. Vance, NSA and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had echoed Trump’s comments, giving details of the talks. Deputy Secretary Christopher Landau said he had witnessed Rubio “tirelessly working the phones with the leaders of both India and Pakistan to prevent a dangerous escalation of the situation.
But Indian officials briefing the media on Sunday (May 11, 2025) stressed that negotiations with Pakistan had been conducted directly through the Directors General of Military Operations only and not through US officials. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) made no formal comment on Trump’s tweets. Delhi chose not to react to statements from other US State Department officials as well. Clearly, India is miffed with Trump and his aides for jumping the gun. This will not have gone unnoticed in Washington.
Indians are put off by Trump’ bid to put trade with India on the same pedestal with Pakistan despite differences in their relative importance. India and US are negotiating an FTA to double the current level of bilateral trade which is US$ 130 billion, while US and Pakistan bilateral trade is less than US$10 billion.
Modi Faces Flak at Home
Despite the claims of Indian military spokesmen about kills in Pakistan, Modi is being criticised by the Hindu nationalist lobby as well as the opposition Congress. Nationalists think that Trump suddenly appeared out of nowhere and imposed a ceasefire when India was winning. The Congress is criticising Modi for meekly giving in to US pressure unlike its Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who resisted President Nixon’s pressure to abandon her plan to liberate East Pakistan in 1971. Modi is seen as having meekly abandoned the Simla agreement which Indira Gandhi had negotiated with Pakistan after winning the Bangladesh war. Hence, Modi’s belligerent tone in his address on Monday.
Cross-border Terrorism Side lined
By agreeing to abort under US persuasion just three days of military operations, India is drawing international attention to the Kashmir dispute, not to Pakistan’s cross-border terrorism that triggered the crisis, observed Dr. Brahma Chellaney, a New Delhi based defence analyst.
People wonder why Modi agreed to a ceasefire if he had knocked out Pakistan’s key defence assets and terror infrastructures. Military spokesman had said that over 100 terrorists were killed, including individuals linked to the 1999 plane hijacking and the 2019 Pulwama attack. Among those killed were bigwigs Yousuf Azhar, Abdul Malik Ral and Mudasir Ahmed. But asked about how many assets the Indian armed forces lost last week in light of Islamabad’s claim to have downed five Indian fighter jets, the spokesman said that “we are in a combat situation and losses are a part of combat”, but declined to divulge any details.
Pakistan Curries Favour With US
In contrast to India, Pakistan has repeatedly thanked Trump for his role in bringing about the ceasefire and his offer to mediate on Kashmir. The Indians have been cold and there is anti-US propaganda on television. Thus, Pakistan may have won Trump’s heart by its appreciative stance.
However, Pakistan is unlikely to go into talks with India unconditionally even if India agrees to talk. Pakistan’s first and foremost concern is not Kashmir, but the restoration of the Indus River Waters Treaty (IWT) which India has kept in abeyance. Pakistan’s agriculture and power supplies depend on water flows in the three rivers in the Indus system. India has been demanding renegotiation of the IWT. But the issue is not easy to resolve even through talks. This time the World Bank is not likely to be the broker as it as it was in 1960, the World Bank’s Chief Ajay Banga had said so in New Delhi recently.
US-China Trade Deal
Another worrying issue for India is Monday’s landmark US-China agreement to drastically roll back tariffs on each other’s goods for an initial 90-day period. An India-US trade pact, in contrast, is way off.
The announcement, which was made in a joint US-China statement, comes after a weekend of marathon trade negotiations in Geneva. Both sides recognized “the importance of a sustainable, long-term, and mutually beneficial economic and trade relationship.”
The mutual tariff revisions will be imposed by May 14. Trump’s 20% fentanyl-related levies on China, imposed in February and March, will stay. However, each side has agreed to lower “reciprocal” tariffs on the other by 115 percentage points for 90 days.
That effectively means the US will temporarily lower its overall tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30%, while China will cut its levies on American imports from 125% to 10%, according to the joint statement.
The two sides also agreed to establish “a mechanism to continue discussions about economic and trade relations,” led by Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
“These discussions may be conducted alternately in China and the United States, or a third country upon agreement of the Parties. As required, the two sides may conduct working-level consultations on relevant economic and trade issues,” it added.
No China-US De-Coupling
Speaking at a Monday press conference in Geneva, Bessent said: “The consensus from both delegations is neither side wants to be decoupled. We do want trade. We want more balance in trade. And I think both sides are committed to achieving that.”
A spokesperson for China’s Commerce Ministry called the joint statement “an important step by both sides to resolve differences through equal-footing dialogue and consultation, laying the groundwork and creating conditions for further bridging gaps and deepening cooperation.”
No China-US decoupling is bad news for India
But the decision to give up US-China de-coupling project by the US is bad news for India. US companies will stay put in Chin and not migrate to India as expected till recently.
India-US Trade Deal Long Way Off
In contrast to the US-China trade deal, the India-US deal is expected to take time. The US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg Podcasts about the tough US conditions.
“ If you want your reciprocal tariff low, you have to attack the trade deficit, open your market, open your market big. We may come up with the smartest answer like we did with the UK,” Lutnik told the Indian negotiators. He gave the example of the UK wanting to sell Rolls Royce engines to Boeing and in return agree to buy US$ 10 billion Boeing planes from the US as part of the deal.
Ajay Srivastava, founder, Global Trade Research Initiative is quoted as saying that India may be asked to reduce tariffs on a basket of sensitive agricultural products including soybeans, ethanol, apples, almonds, walnuts, raisins, avocados, spirits, genetically modified organism products and meat and poultry.
Srivastava added that tariff concessions on automobiles are also expected, especially as India has agreed to reduce duties on select UK vehicles from 100% to 10% under its recent agreement with the UK.
“India must insist on a balanced, fair, and sovereign approach to negotiations — one that strengthens its economy without compromising its farmers, its digital future, or its regulatory space. If that balance cannot be achieved, India is better off walking away from the deal,” Srivastava said.
But does India have China’s strength and clout to strike a reasonable deal with the powerful President Trump? Struggling to be in the big league against great domestic drawbacks, India’s ability to compete with China for America’s favours is seriously questionable. And the bitterness that has crept into the Indo-US relationship due to Trump’s intervention in the war will only make matters more intractable.
END
