Introduction

The Trump administration during his second term as the President of the United States has adopted a more assertive and unpredictable approach to the US foreign policy deploying tariffs and other economic tools against both, the rivals and the partners.

By this, the US President Donald Trump has expressed open hostility toward multilateral institutions by pursuing a highly transactional, personalised style of diplomacy.

These developments have intensified geopolitical competition, weakening the post-Cold War international order contributing to a more uncertain global landscape.

Viability of India’s foreign policy under the circumstances

The development raises questions about the viability of India’s foreign policy approach being increasingly organised around a strategy of diversification, deepening cooperation with the United States and the West on the one hand, and cultivating relationships across a wide range of regions and non-US-aligned institutions at the same time. The approach, often described as multi-alignment aims to secure benefits of close ties with the West without incurring the costs of estrangement from other important partners at the same time, thereby preserving India’s strategic autonomy.

The return of Trump brings into focus a fundamental question as to what extent Trump 2.0 is disrupting the foundations of India’s approach to the world, and how far it has shaped India’s foreign policy across key regions and issues.

Strategic Diversification

Despite friction, the United States remains central to India’s long-term strategic objectives, particularly in:

1. Defence cooperation;
2. Advanced technology, and;
3. Efforts to balance China’s growing power.

Uncertainty about U.S. policy has compelled India to broaden its network of partners, intensifying engagement with Europe and the other middle powers, expanded economic diplomacy, and maintaining productive relationships with countries such as Russia even at the cost of unpleasant relations with the United States, and even inviting pressure from the US. In the Middle East also, India has sought to sustain parallel relationships with rival actors, from Israel on the one hand, and the Gulf states to Iran on the other, while avoiding formal alignment.

India’s room to manoeuvre.

While India has shown considerable diplomatic agility, it cannot ignore the structural constraints it faces. The United States remains indispensable as a source of advanced technology, capital, and defence cooperation for it, with China remaining India’s primary long-term strategic competitor and a central driver of its external partnerships.

Russia, on the other hand, despite its declining global influence and disastrous war in Ukraine, continues to play an important role in India’s defence, energy, and geopolitical calculations.

India’s responses to Trump 2.0 therefore do not reflect a dramatic realignment, but careful balancing of trade-offs among these relationships.

Economic Diplomacy

On the economic front, India has been forced to expand use of its economic statecraft, the use of economic means to pursue foreign policy goals to achieve its national interests, as the Trump administration’s zeal for deploying tariffs and other instruments of economic coercion has underscored how quickly economic interdependence can be weaponised.

The developments have reshaped India’s approach to trade, supply chains, and technology cooperation, prompting a reassessment of the country’s earlier fascination with the inward-oriented economic strategies.

Faced with increased market volatility and geopolitical pressure, India has therefore accelerated:

1. Trade negotiations with major partners;
2. Recalibrated its domestic regulatory policies, and;
3. Deepened its integration into emerging global technology networks.

It is obvious, economic integration has been recast by India as a pillar of strategic resilience rather than merely a commercial interest.

India’s Institutional Adaptation

As multilateral institutions face a crisis of credibility India has increasingly come to rely on smaller and more flexible coalitions to pursue its interests adapting institutionally to a more fragmented international system. These include issue-based partnerships in technology and security, such as, the U.S.-India COMPACT (Catalysing Opportunities for Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce & Technology) and the UK-India Technology Security Initiative (TSI), and Geopolitical groupings such as, the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

However, despite long-standing grievances with the international institutions like the United Nations, India has not spurned multilateralism. Instead, it appears to be pursuing multiple strategies and putting them together to work harmoniously, combining support for Global institutions with the strategic use of bilateral and minilateral cooperation.

The erosion of multilateral institutions has reinforced India’s calls for their reform and for more representative global governance. The intensifying rivalry among major powers underscores the continuing importance of the policy of strategic autonomy followed by India.

Epilogue

India’s response to Trump 2.0 has been characterised by tactical adjustment. Across domains as varied as trade policy, technology cooperation, great-power relations, and global governance, Indian policymakers have adjusted the specifics while preserving a broader strategy centred on diversification, flexibility, and hedging.

Whether this approach will remain sustainable as geopolitical competition intensifies remains unclear. What is clear however is that, India’s response to the state of confusion without any order unleashed by Trump 2.0 offers a peep into how rising powers navigate uncertainty in an increasingly fragmented international system.

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