Three incidents highlight how much things remain the same, no matter how much people like Donald Trump try to change them. The first is the current US President praising India’s robust election process, with voter identity cards being biometrically verified. The second is the release of the annual report of the US Commission for International Religious Freedom, which, as usual, has criticised India, selectively citing instances of intimidation of minorities here.

And the third, interestingly, is the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, released this Thursday. Although the main report pinpoints four countries—China, Russia, Iran and North Korea—as the main threats to the US, there are two passing and unsubstantiated references to India as a ‘state actor’ in the report. It thus appears to be cocking a snook at the current US national intelligence boss Tulsi Gabbard and FBI chief Kash Patel.

The foreword states, “A range of cyber and intelligence actors are targeting our (US) wealth, critical infrastructure, telecom, and media. Nonstate groups are often enabled, both directly and indirectly, by state actors, such as China and India, as sources of precursors and equipment for drug traffickers." Curiously, while the report elaborates on the Chinese government’s direct, overt and covert role in ‘targeting’ the US, there are no further details on how India does so.

And in the section titled ‘Nonstate Transnational Criminals and Terrorists’, it outlines how international drug cartels are making illicit fentanyl and other synthetic opioids and smuggling them into the US, naming two Mexico-based gangs and also including Colombia and Ecuador as important centres. But then it gratuitously adds, “China remains the primary source country for illicit........

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