India seeks to recalibrate China ties
United States President Donald Trump's lunch meeting with Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir prompted a private diplomatic protest from India in a warning to Washington about risks to their bilateral ties while New Delhi is recalibrating relations with China as a hedge, officials and analysts said.
The meeting and other tensions in the US-India relationship, after decades of flourishing ties, have cast a shadow in trade negotiations, they said, as Trump's administration weighs tariffs against one of its major partners in the Indo-Pacific.
India blames Pakistan, especially the military establishment, for supporting what it alleges is cross-border terrorism and has told the US it is sending the wrong signals by wooing Field Marshal Munir, three senior Indian government officials directly aware of the matter told Reuters.
It has created a sore spot that will hamper relations going forward, they said.
US-India ties have strengthened in the past two decades despite minor hiccups, at least partly because both countries seek to counter China.
The current problems are different, said Michael Kugelman, a Washington-based senior fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation think tank.
"The frequency and intensity with which the US is engaging with Pakistan, and seemingly not taking Indian concerns into account, especially after India's recent conflict with Pakistan, has contributed to a bit of a bilateral malaise.
"The concern this time around is that one of the triggers for broader tensions, that being Trump's unpredictability, is extending into the trade realm with his approach to tariffs," he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office and India's foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. The foreign ministry has previously said that it had "taken note" of the Trump-Munir meeting.
A US official said they do not comment on private diplomatic communications and that the US enjoys strong relationships with both India and Pakistan. "These relationships stand on their own merits, and we do not compare our bilateral relationships with one another," the US official said.
The US seems to have taken a different tack on Pakistan after a brief conflict broke out between the nuclear-armed rivals in May when India launched strikes on what it called terrorist targets across the border in response to a deadly attack on tourists in IIOJK.
A few weeks after the May fighting, Trump hosted Field Marshal Munir for lunch at the White House, a major boost in ties with the country, which had largely languished under Trump's first term and Joe Biden. It was the first time a US president had hosted the head of Pakistan's army at the White House unaccompanied by senior Pakistani civilian officials.
COAS Munir's meeting in the White House added to India's chagrin over Trump's repeated insistence that he averted nuclear war between the two nations by threatening to stop trade negotiations with them. The comment drew a sharp response from Modi, who told Trump that the ceasefire was achieved through talks between army commanders of the two nations, and not US mediation.
In the days following his June 18 meeting with COAS Munir, people from Modi's office and India's national security adviser's office made separate calls to their US counterparts to register a protest, two of the officials said. The protest has not been previously reported.
"We have communicated to the US our position on cross-border terrorism, which is a red line for us," said a senior Indian official. "These are difficult times Trump's inability to understand our concerns does create some wrinkle in ties," he added, seeking anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Trump and COAS Munir discussed continuation of a counterterrorism collaboration, under which the US has previously provided weapons to Pakistan, a non-Nato US ally, and talked about ways to further strengthen ties, a readout of the meeting from the Inter-Services Public Relations said.
That raised concern in New Delhi that any arms Pakistan receives from the US could be turned on India if the neighbours end up in conflict again, two of the officials said.
Harder stance
Despite what used to be public displays of bonhomie between Trump and Modi, India has been taking a slightly harder stance against the US in recent weeks, while trade discussions have also slowed, the Indian officials and an Indian industry lobbyist said.
Modi declined an invitation from Trump to visit Washington after the G7 meeting in Canada in June.
Earlier this month, New Delhi proposed retaliatory duties against the US at the World Trade Organisation, showing trade talks were not going as smoothly as they were before the India-Pakistan clashes.
India, like other nations, is trying to figure out a way to deal with Trump and is recalibrating ties with China as a hedge, said Harsh Pant, foreign policy head at India's Observer Research Foundation think tank.
"Certainly there is an outreach to China," he said. "And I think it is mutual China is also reaching out".