Accusing India of financing Russia’s war in Ukraine, Trump demanded that India immediately stop buying Russian oil, threatening India with tariffs that would ‘make your head spin’. External affairs minister S. Jaishankar’s strange statement that India had been persuaded to purchase Russian oil by the Americans is, however, yet to be explained by either side.

By the time PM Modi flew into Tianjin to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit on 31 August, Americans were baying about betrayal by India. Peter Navarro, a White House advisor close to Trump, warned against India getting into bed with China. If India wanted to be treated like a strategic partner of India, it had to act like one, he said on TV.

Navarro also went on to describe the war in Ukraine as ‘India’s Ukraine War’ and accused India of acting like a laundromat for Kremlin, an accusation that the MEA refuted as false and misleading on 5 September.  Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman also doubled down and reiterated India’s stand and told TV channel Network 18, “We will continue [to buy Russian oil]. It’s been made clear. We will take a call on what suits us best. Whether its Russian oil or anything else, it’s our decision which suits our needs.”

It is no longer a lovers’ quarrel. Geopolitical conditions have changed. India quietly signed the Tianjin Declaration that condemned the genocide in Gaza and the unilateral attacks on Iran by Israel and the US. The warmth that Putin put on while greeting Modi for the photo-ops — after all, Russia is now India’s principal supplier of oil — was remarkable and so was their much-publicised 40-minute talk in Putin’s limousine protected from spyware and listening devices.

While the SCO took a firm turn towards multipolarity and announced a new Development Bank — SCO already has one — for member countries, alarm bells rang in Washington DC.   

It is difficult to predict what the erratic US president may do next. His options are limited and while Indian IT-enabled services seem to be safe, one can never tell what a volatile Donald Trump may do.