This works until Tariff Man suddenly alters the deal.
The Modi admin has also been cultivating Trump and Stephen Miller adjacent advisors [3][4][5] at the Heritage and Hudson Foundation for a couple years now too, by trying to use Walter Russell Mead the same way Graham Allison acted as a conduit between China and the US.
And besides that, the tariffs remain oriented as a de facto blockade against China, and as long as they remain at a rate above 60-70%, Chinese sourced suppliers remain price uncompetitive.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-us-finalise-terms-...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/musk-says-he-will-visit-...
[2] - https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Van...
[3] - https://indiafoundation.in/event-reports/india-study-tour-of...
[4] - https://x.com/Scholars_Stage/status/1876079122994401438
On a recent APM Marketplace episode, Kai asked one of his guests to predict how this ends, and their answer was, paraphrasing, “haha are you kidding me? I can’t even tell you what the next 24 hours is going to look like.” [1]
[1] https://pca.st/episode/6ce6c8be-c008-439f-b1a9-dc45cf48c57a?...
Inside Trump's tariff brain - https://www.axios.com/2025/04/19/inside-trump-mindset-tariff... - April 19th, 2025
We'll see about that.
Even when Trump was not president, countries like India, Israel, KSA, Japan, etc tried keeping informal relations with that sphere, which made negotiating much easier from the start.
Hell, Denmark loans out Greenland as an unofficial American protectorate and the US retaliates by seeking to just steal their territory, despite their almost insane pro-American bias. To the extent of sending the VP there to challenge Denmark's hold on its sovereign territory?
Again - that's the guy you're reasoning with?
That's before you factor in the American Right's virulent hatred for Indians, who they see as parasitic, simply for coming to work in the US on H1Bs. I hope it works out perfectly for all parties involved.
Absolutely not. The Trump admin is treating some of our closest allies horribly. That said, there was no reason not to prepare and cultivate relations in case a second Trump admin was formed.
> American Right's virulent hatred for Indians, who they see as parasitic, simply for coming to work in the US on H1Bs
Visas don't matter for the Indian right either (the National Conservative movement). It sucks horribly for the Indian diaspora, but they can't vote in Indian elections so they don't matter to Indian policymakers.
To understand how Trump or Orban or Modi administrations work and think, we need to deep dive into their own ideology (and lack of ideology). Understanding the Stephen Millers, George Birnbaums, and Amit Shahs is critical to understanding the administrations they manage.
> tariffs remain oriented as a de facto blockade against China
They’re against imports, period.
Pretty much. But I'd still disagree that this kind of lobbying doesn't have value. The UK (Vance), Israel (Kushner but now Trump Jr), and KSA have been working on building similar informal networks with the Trump admin. They can't predict everything but they can at least start understand the inner workings of the admin somewhat.
Ironically, this is similar to how China scholars and India scholars would try to approach power dynamics in both countries as well.
Clearly a severe degradation of our administrative capacity though - there's a reason diplomacy was increasingly formalized after the Gulf of Tonkin incident
> They’re against imports, period
Yep! I meant decoupling.