India–United States relations appear to be entering one of their most strained phases in recent memory, with a New York Times report suggesting that President Donald Trump may no longer travel to India for the forthcoming Quad summit later this year. The Quad Summit in 2025 is scheduled to be hosted by India in New Delhi.
The Quad summit serves as a strategic platform focusing on Indo-Pacific regional security and cooperation among the United States, India, Japan, and Australia.
Once marked by bonhomie and theatrical displays of mutual admiration, the rapport between PM Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump has likely deteriorated with surprising speed, weighed down by clashing claims on India-Pakistan tension, trade friction, and sharp disagreements on geopolitics.
Why is Trump reconsidering his India visit?
According to officials in the know cited by The New York Times, Donald Trump, who had earlier promised PM Modi a visit during the Quad summit, has quietly shelved those plans. This reversal reflects both the growing discord between the two leaders and Washington DC’s mounting frustrations with New Delhi’s independent posture on trade and energy ties with Russia.
In recent weeks, the White House has imposed successive tariffs on Indian imports, culminating in a punishing 50 percent levy—ostensibly for New Delhi’s decision to continue purchasing Russian oil.
Critics argue the sanctions are less about punishing Moscow and more about penalising India for refusing to align neatly with Trump’s narrative on India-Pakistan conflict.
What triggered the diplomatic rift between India and US?
The turning point came during a phone call in June 2025, reports NYT.
In June 2025, reportedly Donald Trump, during a call with PM Modi, claimed personal credit for ending hostilities between India and Pakistan. The US President boasted that Pakistan intended to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize, implying that India should follow suit.
PM Modi reportedly brusquely rejected the claim, reminding Donald Trump that the ceasefire was negotiated bilaterally without any external mediation, NYT report says.
This exchange between the leaders of India and US, seemingly minor, became emblematic of a wider erosion of trust.
For PM Modi, Trump’s repeated assertions of brokering “peace” between Delhi and Islamabad, undermined India’s long-standing policy of treating Pakistan as a strictly bilateral issue. For Donald Trump, PM Modi’s refusal to play along with his Nobel ambitions appeared as a slight, NYT report stated citing people in the know.
Are trade tensions fuelling the India-US fallout?
Trade negotiations, once heralded as a cornerstone of the India-US partnership, have ground to a halt. Donald Trump’s decision to slap a further 25 percent tariff on Indian goods, on top of existing duties, has been seen in New Delhi as outright economic bullying. An Indian official, quoted in the The New York Times report, characterised the approach as gundagardi—a colloquial term for thuggery.
The punitive measures come as India simultaneously deepens economic engagement with other partners, most notably China and Russia.
PM Modi has landed in China on Saturday, 30 August, for the SCO Summit. The Indian Prime Minister is slated to have key meetings with China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin—an itinerary that would once have been diplomatically unthinkable at the height of the Trump–Modi camaraderie.
How is public perception shaping the India-US ties?
In India, Trump’s standing has plummeted. His effigy was paraded in Maharashtra during a festival, branded a “backstabber” by furious crowds. The deportation of Indian nationals in shackles, restrictions on H-1B visas, and tighter controls on student visas have further soured public sentiment.
Meanwhile, within Donald Trump’s political base, anti-immigrant rhetoric has found India a convenient target, despite the country’s early attempts to align with American right-wing priorities, the NYT report flags.
The sense in New Delhi is that India has been uniquely singled out, while larger buyers of Russian oil, such as China, remain untouched by equivalent tariffs.
What does this mean for India–US relations?
The seemingly souring relationship between Narendra Modi and Donald Trump represents more than a personal falling-out between two populist leaders.
It risks altering the trajectory of a strategic partnership long regarded as essential to balancing China’s rise in the Indo-Pacific. Should Trump indeed cancel his India visit, it would symbolise not merely a diplomatic slight but a deeper estrangement that could reconfigure New Delhi’s external alignments.
At stake is whether India will continue to prioritise ties with Washington DC or accelerate its rapprochement with Beijing and Moscow. With both countries now engaging in sharp rhetoric, the coming months may determine whether the world’s largest and oldest democracies can salvage their partnership—or whether the Trump–Modi rift marks the start of a more profound geopolitical realignment.
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