No, there is method to the madness. If India feels the pain and China doesn’t then this hurts India more than if they both were pushed. Trump has more leverage with India right now so use it. Russia can lower the price against India but then that is just not fair to China. Playing them differently is, in my opinion, the absolute right thing to do.
“Playing them differently is, in my opinion, the absolute right thing to do.”
India’s exports to the U.S. are more important to the U.S. than U.s. exports to India. India exports to the U.s. are only 18% of its exports and only 2% of its GDP. U.s. exports to India are only about half as much. India is less reliant on it’s trade with the U.s. than is China.
Trump has more leverage on China than he does on India. He’s raising the extra - you buy oil from Russia - tariff on India when he should be raising it on China.
This whole thing is daft because it is unnecessary. India will remember this slight. Most Indians , to this day, remember that the US sent its 7th fleet to intimidate India in the 1971 war with Pakistan which resulted in the birth of Bangladesh. Didn't work then but put India-US relations in a cold freeze for 30 years. A similar chill will result now. Any idea that India might help the US in the event of China invading Taiwan just went out of the window. QUAD too. The Chinese must be delighted. They even get to have a Xi-Modi-Putin meet the end of this month, with Modi visiting China after 7 years.