President Donald Trump is unpredictable and recently managed to surprise himself for pulling off the historic India-EU trade deal, albeit unintentionally. While India’s pro-US lobby is arguing that the free trade agreement has nothing to do with the global turbulence caused by Trump’s unilateral actions and offensive statements, and that the deal was a work in progress and would have been inevitably concluded anyway, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyan made it clear that the FTA “sends a signal to the world that rules-based cooperation still delivers the best outcomes.”
The European Commission, on its website, makes a direct reference to the Trump-triggered global disorder when it says that the Agreement would strengthen bilateral political and economic ties “at a time of rising geopolitical tensions and global economic challenges, highlighting the joint commitment to economic openness and rules-based trade.”
Calling the Agreement “the mother of all deals” was sending a clear and unambiguous message to Washington that strategic disruption encourages strategic realignment. Indeed, it would be fair to say that the India-EU negotiations received an accelerated push to forge new partnerships so as to counter the Oval Office’s adversarial and combative approach to global relations.
The White House is clearly rattled. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expressed deep disappointment, saying sardonically that by inking the FTA with India that was buying oil from Russia, the Europe countries were essentially financing a war “against themselves”. Punishing retaliation from the US should not come as a surprise.
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When Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos and referred to a “rupture” in the existing order and the need for middle powers to unitedly craft a global order based on shared values and aspirations, he was echoing the concerns of the global community at Trump’s repeated pressure tactics to expose and take advantage of vulnerabilities.
Consider, for instance, that in the last twenty-four hours, the president has warned that he would send fighter jets into Canadian airspace in case Ottawa cancels the F-35 purchase and furthermore, South Korea, which has been grappling with a domestic political crisis, has been threatened with additional 25% tariffs for not having yet ratified the trade deal. It bears recalling that South Koreans have not forgotten the recent and humiliating detention of more than 300 of its workers from the Hyundai plant in the US state of Georgia by immigration authorities. South Korea’s president and the Hyundai CEO have expressed dismay and warned that the action would hurt bilateral relations. Indeed, Trump’s actions are increasingly becoming a matter of global annoyance, and a pushback would have, inevitably, occured.
India Needs The Middle Path
For India, this is an excellent wake-up call to assess whether a strategic realignment in global relations would serve its interests better, especially since Washington has, during Trump’s second term, demonstrated that it is not a reliable partner and the low esteem with which Trump’s advisors hold India. The pro-US lobby would, understandably, argue that any kind of strategic distancing from Washington would hurt India’s interests. Their prescription is that New Delhi needs to keep the bigger picture in mind and accommodate Trump’s mercurial mannerisms. This is flawed rationale.
No nation can build a viable foreign policy based on submission, subservience, and servility. At one level, no one would, certainly, advocate that India should break relations with Washington. At another level, nor should acquiescence to threats and bullying be considered good and responsible governance. What India needs is the middle path.
It may be recalled that even at the time Washington was expressing annoyance and levying unfair tariffs on India for the purchase of Russian oil, defence cooperation continued seamlessly. In October 2025, India and the US signed a new and forward-looking ten-year Defence Framework Agreement, which would inter alia deepen technology transfer, joint production, enhance maritime security, interoperability across all military domains, and also sales of Javelin anti-tank missiles and Excalibur guided artillery ammunition. This kind of middle path approach allows India the strategic flexibility and depth that it needs.
Diluting Overdependence On US Market
What India next needs to consider is opening a dialogue with Beijing, while remaining mindful of its security concerns. Years of hostility and China’s anti-India posturing, coupled with its hegemonic aspirations, have understandably created an atmosphere of deep distrust. However, the atmospherics are now right for a rethink as to whether current distancing serves mutual interest. The middle path approach justifies seeking out areas of collaboration, especially through enhanced trade and thereby diluting the overdependence on the US market, both for China and for India. This calibrated strategic rebalancing would lay the foundations of a far more manageable and predictable global order. India would not be unique in this. Australia already has China as a major trading partner. Canadian PM Carney has recently visited Beijing, is expected to visit New Delhi in March, and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is already on a flight to China.
This is the time for a recasting of India’s foreign and security policy and the creation of an architecture that takes cognizance of new realities and the huge dislocation in global relations that Trump and his administration has ushered. An aspiring India should no longer be swayed by the rhetoric of the pro-US lobby.
(The author is a former Indian ambassador and advisor to the governing council of the Centre for National Security Studies. Views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at berlinbeckons@yahoo.com)
(This article appeared on South Asia Monitor online January 28, 2026. Used under special arrangement with SAM)