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For two decades, Washington and New Delhi cultivated what many called the most successful strategic partnership in the post–Cold War world. Now that the relationship, developed through diplomatic and defense cooperation over the years, is at one of its most important inflection points, as trust between the two sides is severely frayed by tariffs, oil politics, and realignments on the world stage.

“The trust is gone,” Evan Feigenbaum, a South Asia analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said bluntly.

After U.S. President Donald Trump slapped sweeping tariffs on Indian goods earlier this year over New Delhi’s refusal to cut purchases of Russian crude in the wake of the Ukraine war, the relationship between the two countries has reached a breaking point. The tariff, which has so far been set at 25 percent, will increase to 50 percent on Aug. 27. Instead of pressuring India to change its oil-buying behavior, Washington’s move is instead pushing the country into the arms of Moscow and, to some degree, Beijing.

India’s national security adviser visited Moscow just last week. Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has also conducted high-level talks in Moscow, as did Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in New Delhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to travel to China next month for the first time in over seven years. He’ll be in Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the year. And analysts say this pivot east has a strong strategic dimension.

Indian public opinion also has turned hard against what is perceived as U.S. intervention in India’s sovereign decision-making. “They’re signaling very clearly that they view that as interference in India’s foreign policy, and they are not going to put up with it,” Feigenbaum said.

New Delhi had been reluctant to make these moves at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, but state-run refiners restarted Russian oil imports after discounts of six to seven percent, spurring further purchases from Moscow. Russian oil now accounts for 35 percent of India’s crude imports compared to 0.2 percent before the war in Ukraine. Russia, for its part, is happy to oblige. Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov said in an interview that “exports of Russian crude oil, oil products, thermal and coking coal, metallurgical fuel are working well, and there is potential for the export of Russian LNG.”

Strings Attached

Michael Kugelman, a South Asia analyst at the Washington-based Wilson Center, said it was important to note that Trump’s tariffs were not the only driver of India’s changing foreign policy. “We’ve seen indications for almost a year of India wanting to ease tensions with China and strengthen relations, mainly for economic reasons. But the Trump administration’s policies have made India want to move even more quickly,” he said.

Some of New Delhi’s recent gestures, such as Modi’s participation in China’s Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in May, may have been more for show than anything else. But others are more structural. Feigenbaum said, “India is going to double down on some aspects of its economic and defense relationship with Russia — and those parts are not performative.”

New Delhi had already started to diversify away from Russia’s arms in the years leading up to the Ukraine war, but the purchases of U.S., French, and Israeli weaponry had accelerated in recent years as India’s military modernization gathered pace. Once the war began, energy trade with Moscow increased in leaps and bounds. Kugelman said this has given validation to Indian thinking that “the U.S. can’t be trusted, whereas Russia can — because Russia is always going to be there for India no matter what.”

At the same time, Modi’s efforts to boost ties with Russia and China have been driven in part by the need to burnish his credentials at home as a protector of India’s independence. He has presented himself as one who puts the interests of farmers, small businesses, and young workers first, a message with significant political appeal at home. Kugelman noted that India had already made major concessions to Washington in the recent past on such issues as tariff cuts and the repatriation of workers. “Because of those concessions, India needs to be careful about signaling further willingness to bend. This is one reason there was no trade deal — Modi put his foot down,” he said.