Washington, DC [US], August 13 : International security scholar Max Abrahms has said that President Donald Trump's second administration appears to be "tilting towards Pakistan and away from India," citing recent diplomatic, military, and trade signals that he says undermine years of strategic investment in the US-India relationship.
In an interview with ANI, Abrahms said he was not surprised by remarks from Pakistan's Army Chief Asim Munir, who made a nuclear threat from American soil. "I'm not surprised that Pakistani officials are engaging in sabre rattling and playing the nuclear threat card, we've heard that before," he said.
"What we had not heard before is this sort of nuclear threat from American soil. And if this was the only incident, I would find it rather unremarkable. But what we are currently witnessing is a trend where it appears that this second Trump administration is tilting towards Pakistan and away from India. We've actually seen it throughout this whole summer."
Abrahms, author of a book on terrorist dynamics, said he could not fully understand the administration's approach. "
US-India relations are the product of a tremendous amount of effort and investment," he said, recalling that during Trump's campaign season, deepening trade and military ties with India, particularly through the Quad, were presented as central to Washington's Indo-Pacific strategy to contain China.
"The pillar of US containment of China in the Pacific, we were told, was a strong US-India relationship," he added.
Drawing a parallel with Japan's post-World War II role as a bulwark against Chinese expansion, Abrahms said the current tariff policy towards India was "unfair, offensive, and destabilising."
Abrahms also noted Trump's unpredictability, suggesting the president could still reverse course. "Sometimes he very rapidly, even instantaneously, changes his rhetoric and overall positions towards a country," he said.
"It is possible that Trump will end up massively alleviating the threatened tariffs against India... especially if there is some progress in that big Alaska meeting between Trump and Putin."
Still, Abrahms warned that even a rollback of the 25% tariff on Indian purchases of Russian oil would not immediately repair the diplomatic damage. "
"I am at least hopeful that the US and India will right this course because I think that India is too important to the United States for there to be any kind of a permanent bump in the relationship. I will say, however, that even if some of the tariffs, a substantial amount of the tariffs like that 25% I mentioned, are lifted, I still think that the US-India relationship may not fully recover for quite some time under this administration, " he said
Because the message to India is that the United States isn't reliable, and that is happening at the same time that the US is inviting the Army Chief of Staff of Pakistan for high-level meetings, including with the President in the United States," he added, pointing to Washington's invitations to Pakistan's Army Chief for high-level meetings and its willingness to discuss enhanced trade with Islamabad, despite the recent designation of a Pakistan-based group as a foreign terrorist organisation.
He cited Operation Sindoor as a turning point in the Trump administration's handling of South Asia. "I think that a key turning point was Operation Sindor, where the Trump administration, India-Pakistan conflict, as if those two countries are on equal footing, on equal terms with the United States. And that the conflict itself is that no one party is more culpable than the other, when the entire conflict was set off by Pakistan-backed terrorists killing large numbers of Hindu civilians. And then the Trump administration came in and claimed credit for reducing the conflict. " Abrahms said.
"Pakistan was very, very happy with the Trump administration's interventions. They even talked publicly about recommending Trump for the Nobel Prize, Abrahms said.
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