India sanctioned, Poland hit, Qatar bombed: How US allies learn the cost of Trump’s ‘America First’

India, long courted by Washington as a counterweight to China, has suddenly found itself at the sharp end of Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy.The US president has ramped up sanctions on New Delhi over its continued purchase of Russian oil, angering Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and straining ties between the world’s two largest democracies.

For decades, both Republican and Democratic leaders held up India as a strategic partner in Asia. Trump’s move marks a break from that tradition.Adding to the tension, Trump appeared visibly irritated after PM Modi downplayed US efforts to broker peace between India and Pakistan, even as other world leaders rushed to congratulate the newly returned president. “Trump expected Modi to echo his line more strongly,” AFP quotes a senior diplomat as saying, who was familiar with the exchange.Pressure at home, pushback abroadThe sanctions come at a moment when India is stepping up defense cooperation with the US while simultaneously balancing its historic ties with Russia. As per the report by AFP, analysts warn Trump’s hard line could push New Delhi closer to Moscow and Beijing.Damian Murphy, a former congressional aide now at the Center for American Progress, said the approach showed “weakness, chaos and vanity.” He argued that leaders like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu “are pushing for advantage, sensing weakness, and getting away with things that they shouldn’t be able to.”

Cracks in the alliance systemIndia is not alone in feeling the sting. In Georgia, mass raids at a Hyundai-LG battery plant stunned South Korea, another treaty ally investing billions in the US. Meanwhile, Israel launched strikes inside Qatar, home to America’s largest air base in the Middle East, while Trump stood by. And in Europe, Poland was rattled after 17 Russian drones landed on its territory, despite Trump’s pleas to Moscow for a ceasefire in Ukraine.A shifting US roleTrump’s aides defend the moves as holding partners to higher standards, a break from what they call decades of “free riding” by allies. His Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, described it as “America First diplomacy in action.”But scholars warn the approach risks undermining US influence just as global instability rises. “These are smaller instances of a much larger trend,” said Paul Poast, a University of Chicago political scientist. “States feel emboldened to act militarily because the US no longer behaves like the world’s police force.”