Is the US falling out of love with India?

After India pursued a deal with Iran on the Chabahar Port, the US responded by threatening New Delhi with sanctions. This has exposed a possible growing geopolitical incompatibility between the two countries over the past several years, even as the US championed India as a critical strategic partner against China.

Since 2017, the US has promoted India as one of its key partners. It even went so far as to rename an entire region “the Indo-Pacific,” eyeing New Delhi as a key strategic asset in its longstanding strategic ambition of containing the rise of China.

India has an independent and strictly self-interested foreign policy. It might be willing to lean towards the US for its own gain, but that does not make it an “ally.”

India has had an interest in balancing the rise of China, because it recognizes that it can benefit economically from supply-chain and manufacturing realignments.

India may be a US partner in some areas, but it is not a US proxy. The two countries have very different visions for the emerging new world order. India cannot accept US subjugation or the removal of its own strategic partners from the chessboard, which has quickly stifled Washington’s starry-eyed vision of India being the newest global champion of freedom and democracy, in pursuit of a unipolar world.