The Folly of Tariff Diplomacy: How Trump's Economic Nationalism Drives India into China's Embrace
By Leon Hadar
The photograph from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin tells a story that should alarm American strategists: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sitting comfortably between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, the three leaders projecting unity in the face of Donald Trump's renewed presidency.
What we're witnessing is not merely diplomatic theater, but the predictable consequence of America's misguided approach to great power competition—one that prioritizes economic coercion over strategic thinking.
Trump's decision to impose 50 percent tariffs on India represents a textbook case of what happens when ideological rigidity trumps geopolitical realism. For over a decade, Washington has invested considerable diplomatic capital in courting New Delhi as a counterweight to China's rise. The partnership made strategic sense: India's geographic position, growing economy, and democratic institutions offered the United States a natural ally in the Indo-Pacific. Yet with a single stroke of protectionist policy, Trump has pushed Modi into the very embrace America sought to prevent.
Modi has signaled India won't stop buying oil from Russia, and has moved to patch up ties with Xi, potentially undercutting more than a decade of U.S. efforts to team up with India in its competition with China. This development should surprise no one familiar with the basic principles of international relations. Nations, like individuals, respond to incentives. When faced with economic punishment from one partner and open arms from another, the choice becomes elementary.
The Trump administration's faith in tariffs as a diplomatic tool reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how power operates in the international system. Economic coercion works best when the target nation has few alternatives and high dependence on the coercing state. India, however, possesses what foreign policy analysts call "strategic autonomy"—the ability to diversify its partnerships and hedge its bets across multiple great powers.
Modi's meeting with Putin underscored New Delhi's stance that India prized its old and reliable strategic partners and has sufficient strategic autonomy in its foreign policy to maintain and strengthen its multi-dimensional partnership. This is not Indian defiance; it's Indian realism. New Delhi understands that in a multipolar world, flexibility equals survival.
From Beijing's perspective, Trump's tariff war represents an unexpected gift. Xi and Putin are "united in our vision of building a just, multipolar world order"—an allusion to the two countries' efforts to revise what they see as a US-led world order unfairly stacked against them. By alienating India through economic pressure, Washington has handed China precisely what it most desires: an opportunity to fracture the Quad partnership and draw India back into its sphere of influence.
The optics alone are devastating for American interests. The Russian, Chinese and Indian leaders stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the SCO summit, which is seen as a foil to American influence in Asia. Visual diplomacy matters in international relations, and this image projects strength, unity, and an alternative to American leadership.
This episode reflects a broader failure in American strategic thinking—the tendency to treat economic relationships as zero-sum competitions rather than positive-sum arrangements that can reinforce security partnerships. The same mindset that views trade deficits as national humiliation also sees every dollar of Indian-Russian energy trade as a blow to American prestige.
Such thinking ignores the complex realities of international commerce and energy security. India's continued purchases of Russian oil reflect not geopolitical alignment but economic necessity. New Delhi lacks the luxury of virtue signaling when it comes to energy imports; it must prioritize the practical needs of its 1.4 billion citizens over Washington's preferences.
A Realist Alternative
A more sophisticated American approach would recognize that India's ties with Russia and China need not preclude deeper partnership with the United States. Strategic triangulation—maintaining beneficial relationships with multiple great powers—represents rational statecraft, not betrayal. Washington's goal should be to ensure that America remains India's most attractive long-term partner, not to force New Delhi into an artificial binary choice.
This requires abandoning the illusion that economic punishment can reshape the strategic calculations of major powers. Instead of tariffs and ultimatums, American diplomacy should emphasize positive inducements: technology transfer, infrastructure investment, and security cooperation that serves mutual interests.
The damage from Trump's tariff diplomacy may already be done, but it's not irreversible. Future American policymakers must recognize that the attempt to bully India into submission has backfired spectacularly. The sight of Modi, Xi, and Putin standing together should serve as a wake-up call: when America acts like an imperial hegemon rather than a strategic partner, it pushes natural allies toward its competitors.
The multipolar world is here to stay. America's choice is not whether to accept this reality, but how to navigate it. Clinging to economic nationalism and transactional diplomacy will only accelerate the formation of opposing blocs. A wiser approach would acknowledge that in a world of multiple centers of power, influence flows to those who offer partnership rather than punishment.
The photograph from Tianjin represents more than a diplomatic moment—it's a preview of an America-free Asian order that could emerge if Washington continues to mistake coercion for strategy. The question now is whether American leaders will learn from this self-inflicted wound or double down on the policies that created it.