For years, India was Washington’s dream partner in its crusade to contain China. But that idyll is beginning to show cracks. Under Narendra Modi’s leadership, New Delhi no longer accepts the role of “junior ally” in the Indo-Pacific strategy. It seeks autonomy, balances alliances and reinforces its weight in the BRICS, just when Donald Trump – back in the White House – wants to dismantle that bloc.
Trump and Modi share an economic nationalism and a discourse of sovereignty, but their political chemistry is not the same as in 2017. Today’s India is more assertive, less willing to follow Washington’s commercial or military guidelines.
Modi’s refusal to join Trump’s protectionist policies, and his defense of India’s role in the BRICS, make it clear: New Delhi does not want to choose between Washington and Beijing, but between dependence or its own power.
This worries the Pentagon. Indo-American military cooperation—centered on intelligence-sharing, naval exercises, and control of the Indian Ocean—was designed to encircle China.
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But if personal tensions between the two leaders grow, that architecture could lose momentum, but not end, at least not in the medium term. India will continue to modernise its fleet and defence with Western support, but will seek to keep the door open to Moscow and its Asian partners. In geopolitics, ambiguity is a virtue.
Trump, true to his transactional style, could offer one-off deals — energy, technology, or defense — to keep India within the U.S. axis. But Modi does not seem willing to mortgage his strategic autonomy. His priority is to turn India into an independent pole between superpowers, capable of negotiating with everyone without subordinating itself to anyone.
Will there be a new understanding? Maybe. Both know that they are needed in the face of Chinese expansion, whether in the Pacific or in the Himalayas. But the era of the “automatic alliance” is over. What is coming will be a harder, more pragmatic relationship conditioned by the balances of the moment.
The Indo-Pacific is no longer Washington’s playground: it is a chessboard where India wants to move its own pieces.
