The Pulse | Diplomacy | South Asia

India’s Foreign Minister Jaishankar Openly Calls Out the US

Previously, India sorted out its differences with friendly nations quietly. Last week, it aired its grievance with Washington publicly.

India’s Minister of External Affairs Dr S. Jaishankar in a discussion with Daniel Russel, vice president for International Security and Diplomacy at Asia Society Policy Institute, New York, Sept. 29, 2026.

On September 28, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a telephone conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump to review progress in bilateral cooperation. In a post on X, Modi described the conversation as “productive.” “We reviewed our bilateral cooperation in trade, defence, energy, critical technologies and other areas. We agreed to maintain close engagement to take our Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership forward,” he said.

While Modi’s post about his conversation with Trump was not negative, it was far less effusive than in the past, even bland. As Yashraj Sharma observed in an article in Al Jazeera, it was a “cold and formal depiction far removed from his description of the US president as a ‘good friend’ in previous years.”

The Trump-Modi phone call came at a time when already fraying bilateral relations hit yet another difficult phase.

Ten days earlier, Trump signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act (SRIA) of 2026, which gives the U.S. president the authority to impose up to 100 percent tariffs on countries that continue to purchase Russian oil and gas. India, which is among the largest buyers of Russian energy, could potentially be impacted.

India-U.S. cooperation has deepened and widened over the past two decades. Despite “complexities,” ties were expected to grow under Trump; the outlook was upbeat.

However, Trump 2.0 has not been good for the partnership. Within weeks of the inauguration of Trump’s second presidential term, ties began unravelling not only over tariffs and immigration but also Washington’s cozying up to Pakistan on a raft of issues, including terrorism, an issue that Delhi is highly sensitive about.

India was among the countries that were hit the hardest by Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs” announced last year. Adding insult to injury, India was then slapped with another 25 percent “punitive tariffs” for buying Russian oil.

Should the U.S. press ahead with imposing SRIA on India, it would hit India’s oil imports and, consequently, its energy security.

Over the past 19 months, although Indians took note of Trump’s abrasive remarks and insensitive tweets, they took it in their stride. The diplomatic establishment seemed to have adopted a patient wait-and-watch policy. India, after all, needed the U.S and benefited from economic and security cooperation with Washington. The current uncertainty was seen as temporary.

However, that mood in Delhi is changing. Its patience with Trump seems to be wearing thin. Officials and analysts are calling on the government to be more realistic in its assessment of the current India-U.S. relationship.

In an article in The Week, Navtej Sarna, a former Indian ambassador to the U.S., wrote: “We need to accept, without caveats, that the relationship has cratered significantly. In America’s eyes, India is not the strategic partner that we believed we were.”

A change is evident not just in Delhi’s mood but also, in its approach.

“India has reached the end of its tether with Trump,” a former official in India’s MEA told The Diplomat. “In the past we abhorred megaphone diplomacy, preferring to sort out nettlesome issues with friends quietly and only via diplomatic channels. That was........

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