It took Donald Trump’s second coming to achieve what years of border clashes, diplomatic frigidity, and mutual suspicion could not: a strategic rapprochement between India and China, with Russia conveniently folded into the mix.
During his first trip to China in seven years, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sat down with President Xi Jinping in Tianjin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. The optics were telling: handshakes, pledges of friendship, and talk of restarting direct flights and boosting trade. Xi, never missing a chance to lace geopolitics with metaphor, declared that “the dragon and the elephant must dance together.” A convenient way of saying: forget the 3,488 kilometres of disputed frontier, focus on tariffs instead.
Trump has been busy reminding Modi why hedging away from Washington might not be such a bad idea. Last week, his administration imposed 50% tariffs on Indian exports, the highest in Asia, to penalise New Delhi for continuing to import Russian oil. Never mind that the US itself once encouraged those purchases to keep global crude prices down; consistency is, after all, for the weak.
In Tianjin, Modi doubled down, meeting not only Xi but also Vladimir Putin. Trump’s critics accuse India of financing Moscow’s war machine, but from Delhi’s perspective, the US has just proven itself to be an unreliable partner. As one former ambassador put it: “Countries like India must find their own way.” Translation: America is no longer a safe bet.
For Xi and Modi, Trump’s tariffs are a gift. Both economies need alternatives as Washington weaponises trade. Both want to shield themselves from being perpetual collateral in an American domestic circus. And both know that a few photo ops and vague promises of “mutual success” cost nothing compared to the billions Trump’s levies will cost them if they continue to play solo.
Of course, suspicion between Beijing and Delhi hasn’t evaporated. Soldiers still glare at each other across the Himalayas, and strategic rivalry won’t vanish because Trump threw a tantrum on social media. But the logic of alignment is suddenly stronger than the logic of rivalry. Trump, in his zeal to punish, has achieved what diplomacy alone could not: a convergence of interests between Asia’s two biggest powers, with Moscow more than happy to join the dance.
The irony couldn’t be sharper. Washington’s tariffs, meant to isolate Beijing and penalise Moscow, are instead nudging India closer to both. Xi and Modi smiling side by side while Putin hovers nearby is not a scene the State Department would have choreographed, but it’s the one Trump has staged. If the dragon and the elephant really do learn to dance, it will be Trump’s music playing in the background.
And here lies the real danger: US diplomacy has become so short-termist, so obsessed with scoring immediate political points, that it has forgotten the elementary rules of geopolitics. By antagonising allies and driving rivals together, Washington is accelerating the creation of the very Eurasian bloc it most fears. It is strategic stupidity on a grand scale, sacrificing tomorrow’s balance of power for today’s headlines.