\n<\/p>\n
Over the past year, a pair of legal bombshells have put India\u2019s growing relationship with the United States to one of its biggest tests yet.<\/p>\n
Just as the two sides were announcing unprecedented expansions in defense and technology ties, U.S. prosecutors accused Indian government agents of plotting to assassinate<\/a> an American citizen on U.S. soil.<\/p>\n Months later, the Justice Department filed fraud and bribery charges<\/a> against India\u2019s most prominent business mogul, whose enterprises have soared to dizzying heights on the back of Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s power.<\/p>\n Still, the relationship has held. After decades of mutual suspicion between the two countries, said Eric Garcetti, the departing U.S. ambassador to India, the fact that now nothing seems to derail their ties is proof of their strength.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think there is anything out there big enough to threaten the trajectory of the U.S.-India relations,\u201d Mr. Garcetti said on Saturday in an interview at the embassy in New Delhi, two days before President Biden leaves office and Donald J. Trump is sworn in as his successor.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is incredibly resilient and almost inevitable,\u201d Mr. Garcetti added. \u201cIt\u2019s really the pace and the progress that\u2019s not inevitable, like how quickly we get there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Biden administration\u2019s doubling down on the relationship with India came after nearly two decades of efforts to shed Cold War-era suspicions that had culminated with U.S. sanctions on India\u2019s nuclear program in 1998.<\/p>\n Washington sees great potential in India as a geopolitical counterweight to an increasingly assertive China. Already the world\u2019s largest democracy, India took over from China as the world\u2019s most populous nation in 2023. India\u2019s demographic advantages and growing technological capacity could help diversify global supply chains away from China, a priority of the United States and other major powers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Now comes Mr. Trump\u2019s second presidency, with its America-first orientation and threats of steep tariffs on trading partners. While leaders of many countries are unnerved, Indian officials insist that they are not among them.<\/p>\n S. Jaishankar, the foreign minister, has said India enjoyed \u201ca positive political relationship with Trump\u201d that it hopes will only deepen. As he attended the opening of a U.S. Consulate on Friday in the tech hub of Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore, Mr. Jaishankar quoted Mr. Modi as saying that the two countries were overcoming \u201cthe hesitations of history.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Modi has enjoyed a strong rapport with Mr. Trump, an important factor because of the incoming president\u2019s personal approach to international relations. During Mr. Trump\u2019s first term, Mr. Modi hosted him at a grand rally in his home state of Gujarat, as well as at a large gathering in Texas of the Indian diaspora \u2014 an increasingly crucial extension of the Indian influence in American politics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But some analysts cautioned that Mr. Trump\u2019s unpredictability and transactional approach could pose risks for India.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Two issues in particular are bound to test the relationship, and most likely soon. During the campaign, Mr. Trump criticized India as gaining an unfair advantage in trade by maintaining high tariffs. And India could be swept up in the controversy if Mr. Trump follows through on his promise of mass deportations of illegal immigrants.<\/p>\n Indians make up the third-largest group of illegal immigrants in the United States, according to the Pew Research<\/a> Center. If Mr. Trump sends large numbers of Indians back to their home country, it could be a major embarrassment for Mr. Modi.<\/p>\n Amita Batra, a New Delhi-based economist and trade expert, said that India should see warning signs in Mr. Trump\u2019s threat of higher tariffs even against America\u2019s traditional allies, as well as his stated willingness to unravel deals with countries like Mexico and Canada that his own first administration had put in place.<\/p>\n \u201cYou may say we are on great terms with Trump, we have an easy relation with the United States, but how Trump views that at a particular time is a different question altogether,\u201d Dr. Batra said at an event at the Center for Social and Economic Progress in New Delhi. \u201cIndia has to be very cautiously approaching Trump 2.0.\u201d<\/p>\n During the interview, Mr. Garcetti described the bilateral relationship as \u201cthe most compelling, challenging and consequential\u201d for both countries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A former Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, Mr. Garcetti arrived in New Delhi in April 2023, after the mission had remained without an ambassador for two years. His confirmation process had hit a wall over accusations that he had overlooked complaints of sexual harassment by an aide when he was mayor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He made up for the time lost with a burst of energy and outreach like that of a politician in campaign mode.<\/p>\n He was everywhere, from cricket grounds to cafeterias to cultural programs. Sporting a leather jacket, he even got behind the piano to open for the jazz legends Herbie Hancock and Dianne Reeves, who had come to perform at the Piano Man Jazz Club in New Delhi.<\/em><\/p>\n But by the time Mr. Garcetti tried his hand at dancing to a viral Bollywood tune<\/a> at a Diwali celebration, relations between the two countries had hit major obstacles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In India, right-wing trolls had seized on the U.S. allegations of Indian government involvement in a plot to assassinate an American citizen advocating a separatist cause in India. That, along with the U.S. indictment of Gautam Adani, the business mogul, was evidence that the United States was trying to dampen India\u2019s inevitable rise, the nationalist online voices argued.<\/p>\n The Biden administration appeared intent on addressing the assassination episode quietly with New Delhi, demanding accountability without allowing it to become a major diplomatic sore point. <\/p>\n \u201cOn Capitol Hill, within the White House, I think with those in the know it was a real moment of reflection and pause,\u201d Mr. Garcetti said of the assassination case. \u201cIt didn\u2019t pause the momentum \u2014 you know, relations between countries are always multifaceted and simultaneous and not just between governments. But I think it was an immediate gut check.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Garcetti said that the Biden administration had been reassured by India\u2019s response. New Delhi had accepted the U.S. demand, he said, \u201cnot just for accountability but for systemic reform and guarantees that this will never happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n An Indian government inquiry that concluded last week recommended legal action against an unnamed person with \u201cearlier criminal links.\u201d It said that the action \u201cmust be completed expeditiously,\u201d in what analysts saw as an attempt to begin the Trump era with a clean slate.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we want to cooperate in other areas that are important to us, intelligence sharing, et cetera, trust is the basis of everything,\u201d Mr. Garcetti said. \u201cBut I\u2019ve been pretty blown away with how trust can deepen through a challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n One question hovering over the deepening ties between the two countries is whether India can truly emerge as an alternative to China in global supply chains \u2014 something that Mr. Garcetti also wondered.<\/p>\n India has reaped only a smart part of the windfall from the moves away from China, with businesses preferring places like Vietnam, Taiwan and Mexico, where it is easier to set up operations and where tariffs are lower.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Garcetti said India had made dramatic leaps after opening up its economy only in the 1990s, years after China. He picked up his iPhone to illustrate a widely highlighted recent success: About 15 percent of iPhone manufacturing now happens in India<\/a>, a figure that could continue growing rapidly, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n More broadly, though, India still struggles to attract foreign investment, despite improvements in infrastructure and some streamlining of regulations. Manufacturing is not growing quickly enough to bring India the jobs it desperately needs.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere India\u2019s leaving a lot of progress and jobs and growth on the table is figuring out a better way to make it seamless and frictionless to invest here for export,\u201d Mr. Garcetti said. \u201cBecause it\u2019s still, you know, for so many components of manufacturing, one of, if not the, highest tariffed economies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re not wrong to look and say it used to be 95 percent worse,\u201d Mr. Garcetti said. \u201cBut if that 5 percent is still double your competitor or 10 times your competitor \u2014 companies, you know, are like water. They flow where gravity takes them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n