‘Bad timing’: US-India tensions throw Albanese-Trump meeting into doubt
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s plans to meet US President Donald Trump in India next month have been thrown into turmoil by the intensifying trade battle between Washington and New Delhi, raising doubts about the future of a four-nation grouping’s ability to counter China.
Trump announced on Thursday that he would double tariffs on Indian exports to the United States to 50 per cent, among the highest in the world, to punish the nation for buying oil from Russia, sparking an angry reaction from New Delhi.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and US President Donald Trump.Credit: Bloomberg, Alex Ellinghausen
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been preparing to host the leaders of Australia, the US and Japan for a summit of the Quad grouping in early September, providing a platform for Albanese’s first in-person meeting with Trump.
The Quad leaders have met every year since 2021 as part of the high-profile partnership designed to showcase the ability of the nations to work together as a democratic counterweight to authoritarian China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific.
Beijing has loathed the Quad since its inception, blasting it as an “exclusive clique” and falsely characterising it as an “Asian NATO”, although the group is not underpinned by a treaty.
Ian Hall, an expert on Indian politics at Griffith University, said it was “a toss up” whether the September summit, which has not been formally confirmed, would go ahead given the rising hostility between Trump and Modi, who until recently revelled in a seemingly friendly relationship.
“The Quad is going to have to come up with a whole new agenda and to find a way to hold a summit in India. It’s very unclear if that will happen,” he said.
“For 25 years, the US has seen India’s rising prosperity and influence as being in its interests. That has just disappeared under ‘America first’ and that’s a big problem.”
Albanese tried to meet Trump to discuss issues including tariffs and AUKUS at a meeting of the G7 group of countries in June, but the president left early as conflict escalated in the Middle East.
If the Quad summit is shelved, Albanese’s next chance to meet Trump would be during a visit to the US for the United Nations General Assembly in New York in late September.
Beyond whether a summit can be arranged, Hall said there were profound questions about the purpose of the partnership now that Trump is pursuing a mercantilist, transactional foreign policy vision.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump at the White House in February.Credit: Bloomberg
Issues the Quad focused on during Joe Biden’s presidency – such as green technology and health security – will be of little interest to Trump, Hall said.
“The question is: what on earth are they going to talk about?” he said. “I can’t see an agenda, to be honest.”
As well as the punishing tariffs, Hall said that US-India relations have been damaged by Trump’s harsh immigration policies and his efforts to deepen ties with Pakistan, a key strategic rival to India.
Lavina Lee, an expert in security studies at Macquarie University, said: “This is really bad timing for the Quad, and the summit may need to be postponed.”
She said: “Previous US administrations have been irritated by India’s ties with Russia and its protectionist economy, but put that aside for the bigger prize of securing India’s support in the geopolitical competition with China. In a prime example of disruption, Trump is showing he has different priorities.”
India’s Ministry of External Affairs decried Trump’s tariff increase as “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable”, questioning why India was punished while other importers of Russian oil were not.
Trump has said he may place similar tariffs on China, another big importer of Russian oil, but has not committed to it.
Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, said in a post on social media: “US-India tensions are clouding the future of the Quad.
“If Trump persists with his hardline tariff stance toward India – and follows through on his threat to impose secondary sanctions over its Russian oil imports – the Quad summit scheduled for this fall in India, which Trump is to attend, could be postponed.
“With Trump’s insults and threats having fuelled bitterness in New Delhi, a trade breakthrough has become imperative to salvage the bilateral relationship.”
Sushant Sareen, a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank in Delhi, wrote on social media: “The US has just lost India. Even if these Trump Tantrum Tariffs end, who in India will trust the US anymore?”
Lee said that “warm and fuzzy” items should be stripped from the Quad agenda and replaced by hard-edged security topics to help appeal to Trump.
The Quad foreign ministers met in Washington in July, announcing a partnership to strengthen critical mineral supply chains.
Last year’s Quad summit was supposed to take place in India, but was instead held in Joe Biden’s hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.
The 2023 summit was supposed to have been held in Sydney but instead took place on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Japan when Biden pulled out at the last minute because of debt ceiling negotiations.
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