Donald Trump’s much-anticipated visit to China will be underway soon. The forthcoming event has already caused some amount of trepidation in New Delhi. As reports go, the visit is all about resetting the tone between the world’s top economies after a fractious year that drove both to the edge of decoupling. How the two countries will go about doing that is not known. The Americans are keeping their cards close to the chest, and the Chinese, as is their wont, have tried to obfuscate the purpose and possible outcome of the visit. But it can safely be said that Trump will try to sell American goods to China. In turn, China will seek to end the uncertainty about tariff reductions and lifting of US restrictions on exports of high-tech goods to China, including chipmaking equipment. US tariffs last year sparked the two countries’ trade war, but were brought down through negotiations. But the issue remains live: the US is investigating whether it will add additional tariffs on certain goods from China and other nations, after the Supreme Court struck down some of the Trump administration’s existing levies. Another issue that the US will bring to the negotiating table is the supply chain shortages of rare earths and other critical minerals.
Where does India figure in all this? In recent months, India has tried to reach out to China and vice versa on improving their business relations through baby steps, like granting more visas. Bilateral trade hovers in the range of $150 billion. The recent visit of an Indian business delegation to China, organised by the Punjab, Haryana, Delhi Chambers of Commerce & Industry – after a freeze of more than five years – marks a quiet reset in the economic angle of our bilateral relations. But the geopolitical calculus by which our foreign office has been driven since 2000 has relied on sustained US-China friction in the hope that this would elevate New Delhi as a frontline Indo-Pacific counterweight to Beijing. If it happens, a substantive Trump-Xi Jinping understanding in areas such as trade, technology controls, or regional security will weaken Washington’s incentive to treat India as a privileged balancing power, reducing Delhi’s bargaining room in defence and intelligence partnerships. In such an eventuality, India risks being treated more as a secondary partner, rather than a central node in the US Indo-Pacific architecture.
India’s recent gains, however limited, in foreign investment and export diversification have stemmed partly from companies seeking to de-risk away from Chinacentric manufacturing. A TrumpChina deal that could relax high bilateral tariffs on Chinese exports or ease USimposed technology constraints could restore cost advantages to Chinese factories, making Chinaplusone strategies less attractive and pushing some inflows back to the People’s Republic of China.
New Delhi has long hoped that the US’s hostility toward China would translate into tighter constraints on Beijing’s militaryeconomic support for Pakistan, especially in nuclear and defence domains. A US-China rapprochement could incentivise Washington to overlook or downplay Chinese activities in Pakistan, including advanced missile and naval transfers, in return for concessions in trade or technology. This would increase India’s relative isolation in dealing with the China-Pakistan axis, requiring more costly indigenous defence buildups.
India’s energy security depends on uninterrupted hydrocarbon flows through the Strait of Hormuz, which remain vulnerable to US-Iranian tensions and regional spoilers. If Trump uses his China visit to secure Beijing’s greater leverage-play over Tehran, in exchange for economic concessions, India could be sidelined in any negotiated arrangements affecting Gulf stability. A Chinafavoured bargain in West Asia may also tilt maritime security arrangements towards Beijing’s interests, marginalising India’s role in antipiracy, tradeprotection and crisis-management coalitions, thus weakening its position as a regional player. Given that Pakistan, which is militarily abetted by China and is now Trump’s favourite country in the subcontinent, is now playing the broker’s role, the scenario is now wholly unlikely.
Till now, India’s regional influence has rested on participation in US-led formats such as the Quad. A Trump-Xi summit that entrenches a G-2 logic on trade, technology, or SouthAsian security could push both Washington and Beijing to coordinate outcomes in ways that marginalise India from core decision-making, such as bordermanagement templates, security arrangements, or supplychain governance rules.
In sum, India cannot afford to treat the Trump-Xi meeting as a distant powerplay. We need to build a counter-narrative by forging even closer ties with Europe, as also South-east and West Asia. A stabilised US-China relationship may sound good for the world, but it risks diluting India’s strategic value, undercutting its economic repositioning.