In terms of both its nature and timing, the European Union President Ursula von der Leyen’s visit to India last week was a pivotal moment for bilateral relations as well as the larger dynamic among the world’s major powers. Well before the disruption of the global order was begun by the election of Donald Trump as US president for the second time, von der Leyen had decided to put India at the top of destinations outside Europe in her own second term that began last summer. Having decided to give relations with Delhi a high priority, von der Leyen arrived in India with 22 of her 27 cabinet colleagues (or the College of Commissioners) for an intense, and broad-based round of consultations between the two governments at the highest level. The return of Trump to the White House and the crisis in trans-Atlantic relations marked by the US........

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