New Delhi: “To face China, the United States must have a friend in India,” wrote Nikki Haley, former US envoy who ran the 2024 Republican presidential race against Donald Trump, in a Newsweek op-ed Wednesday.
“The US-India relationship is at a troubling inflection point. Scuttling 25 years of momentum with the only country that can serve as a counterweight to Chinese dominance in Asia would be a strategic disaster,” she added.
While Haley backed Trump’s claims that India’s energy purchases “are helping to fund Vladimir Putin’s brutal war against Ukraine”, she warned that the US must treat New Delhi as the “prized free and democratic partner that it is”, and not an adversary akin to China.
India’s rise is “among the greatest obstacles to China’s goal of reshaping the global order”, she argued. “Simply put, China’s ambitions will have to shrink as India’s power grows.”
This is the second time in recent weeks that Haley has publicly come to India’s defence. Earlier this month, she had cautioned Trump not to jeopardise the US-India relationship by imposing tariffs or sanctions over its energy ties with Russia, noting that adversaries like China have so far avoided similar consequences despite being one of Russia’s largest oil customers. “Punishing a close ally while sparing adversaries like China sends the wrong signal,” she had said.
India, she wrote in the op-ed, plays a critical short-term role in shifting US supply chains away from China, and serves as a vital long-term ally due to its young workforce, defence partnerships and strategic location. Militarily, India’s growing ties with the US and allies like Israel, along with its increasing regional influence, make it a bulwark against Chinese expansionism. Amid thaw in regional ties between India and China, Haley cautioned that allowing trade friction to rupture Washington-New Delhi ties could invite Beijing to exploit the divide.
“it would be a massive—and preventable—mistake to balloon a trade spat between the United States and India into an enduring rupture. If that were to happen, the Chinese Communist Party would be quick to play India and the United States against one another,” she wrote.
Tensions between Washington and New Delhi have simmered over the extra 25 percent tariff in response to India’s continued purchase of Russian oil, compounding existing trade disputes and drawing criticism from voices like Haley’s that view India as indispensable in countering Beijing.
Haley called for high-level diplomacy between Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “reverse the downward spiral” in relations and re-establish strategic alignment. “The sooner the better,” she urged.
“The administration should focus on mending the rift with India and giving the relationship more high-level attention and resources—approaching what the US devotes to China or Israel. Navigating challenging issues like trade disagreements and Russian oil imports demand hard dialogue, but difficult conversations are often the sign of a deepening partnership,” she concluded.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
India does not need US friendship. Since 1947 till the early 2000s, India was distant and aloof from the US. And yet, we thrived. We do not need the US. We have genuine friends in Russia, France, Israel and other nations. We will manage.