Don’t celebrate a deal that can be so easily undone by Trump

What was once viewed as a natural partnership between the US and India is broken and is unlikely to be fixed by any trade deal. Since 2004, bilateral relations blossomed as George W Bush called India a natural US partner, sharing liberal democratic values, and the only Asian country with the economic potential to counter the growing hegemony of China in economic and military terms.

Bush ended nuclear sanctions on India, started supplying arms and dual-use technology, and helped create the Quad.
That partnership is now broken. Trust takes decades to create and seconds to destroy. The problem is not merely that Trump is a crude muscle-flexer. Rather, he has challenged the entire strategic consensus after World War II, an era when the US helped create an international system where institutions and rules mattered, not just brute force.

That ‘altruistic hegemony’ had a hundred flaws and hypocrisies yet was great enough to create the greatest boom in living standards the world has ever seen.

All countries benefited, including India.