Modi-Putin Car Ride Used As Warning Shot: Democrats Say Trump’s 50% Tariffs Risk ‘Losing India’ | India News
The strategic partnership between the US and India has been significantly weakened by the Trump administration’s “confrontational” trade policies, a Democratic lawmaker told the US Congress. At a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the US-India Strategic Partnership, the viral image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi sharing a car with Russian President Vladimir Putin was used as definitive proof that the partnership was deteriorating.
Ranking Democrat Sydney Kamlager-Dove shook up the picture, claiming that it was the US, not India, that weakened the partnership and pushed New Delhi towards Moscow.
Tariffs and Repression Accused of Undermining Trust
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Kamager-Dove accused Trump of attacking decades of bipartisan work on a range of issues, particularly his aggressive tariff regime on India.
“Cutting Our Noses“Trump’s policies towards India can only be described as cutting off our noses to spite our faces, and this is causing real and lasting damage to strategic trust and mutual understanding between our two countries,” the Democrat said.
The Cost of Coercion: Pointing to the Modi-Putin poster, he warned: “There is a price to pay for being a coercive partner, and this poster is worth a thousand words.”
Tariff Burden: The sticking points are Trump’s 25% “Liberation Day tariffs” added to another 25% tax on India’s imports of Russian oil; this is a cumulative duty burden of 50%. “The tariff rate in India is currently higher than the tariff rate in China,” Kamlager-Dove said.
Symbolic Move of Modi-Putin
The photo used as a warning shot was taken during President Putin’s recent two-day visit to Delhi. Prime Minister Modi personally welcomed Putin at the airport and the two leaders shared a car on their way to the Prime Minister’s residence; it was a gesture seen by both countries as a sign of close personal intimacy. They last shared a car during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in China.
Strategic Malpractice and H-1B Fees
Democrats also criticized policies that went beyond trade, arguing that they harm people-to-people ties.
H-1B Visa Fee: Trump’s $100,000 fee for H-1B visas, 70% of which belong to Indians, was described in the US as “a rebuke of the incredible contributions made by Indians”.
Loss Alerts: Kamlager-Dove issued a dire warning: “Unless he changes course, Trump will be the American president who loses India.”
Expert Testimony: Witnesses, including ORF America’s Dhruva Jaishankar, testified that the tariff fight threatens to diminish immediate strategic imperatives to counter China and stabilize supply chains. “To betray the trust we have established would be strategic malpractice of the highest order,” said one eyewitness.
The congressional hearing concluded that the tariff conflict has become the most politically charged issue in the US-India relationship and has significant geopolitical consequences.
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