‘We should want to have India on our side’: Ex-US envoy to China calls out Trump’s ‘biggest mistake’ since he took office
“Every American president, Democrat and Republican, going back to Bill Clinton, has made a concerted effort, a real national priority, to grow closer to India," said Nicholas Burns.
- Sep 9, 2025,
- Updated Sep 9, 2025 10:06 AM IST
The US at this point cannot count on India in their efforts to limit the influence of China due to Trump’s tariffs and trade decisions, said a former US envoy to China. He also said pushing India away is the biggest foreign policy mistake that the US, under President Donald Trump, has made.
Harvard professor and former US Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, in the ‘How To Fix It with John Avlon’ podcast said, “If we want to be strategic about this, we've got to think of the world we want to live in…and your little kids and my grandchildren will want to live in 15, 20, 30 years from now. We should want to have India on our side because China's going to be a competitor with the United States for our kids and our grandchildren. So I actually think if you look at all of American foreign policy, this mistake of driving India away from us, it's about the most serious mistake that I think President Trump has made since he took office. And that is saying something.”
Speaking about the India-US relationship going back decades, Burns said, “Every American president, Democrat and Republican, going back to Bill Clinton, has made a concerted effort, a real national priority, to grow closer to India so that we can have some leverage on China. India can help the United States, Japan, our other allies in East Asia to limit China's expansion of power in the Indo-Pacific. And I was involved in this within the George W Bush administration where India was a major priority. Every president has done this and suddenly President Trump has put the issue of tariffs beyond our national security.”
Burns said the 50 per cent tariffs on Indian products is injurious to the Indian economy, which has driven Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “do something he had not done in seven years – and that's visit China”. The former envoy referred to the visuals from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation that put the camaraderie between PM Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin on full display.
“This means that the United States at this point cannot count on India to be part of our effort in a lot of different ways to limit what the Chinese are trying to do,” he said.
Referring to the QUAD, Burns said that the Chinese “feared” the bloc because they knew “that these were four very powerful countries in the Pacific who wanted to live in peace with China, but didn't want to be pushed around by them”. Burns said that this has been a strategy of the first order of importance for the US. “And I really hope that the Trump administration is going to reconsider this and stop thinking that tariffs are the be all and end all,” he said.
Burns added that India has been a major military partner of the US in the last two decades. “Not an ally, but a partner in the Bay of Bengal to the east of the subcontinent in the Western Pacific. We do air exercises, naval exercises. Our militaries are working together. And this is of profound importance to us,” he said.
“We don't want that to be at risk because suddenly we're challenging India economically in a way that's going to be very injurious to them. Well, I mean this is an own goal, right?” he said.
Burns said the US strategy, going all the way back to Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, was to drive a wedge between China and Russia, two communist nations. He added that India and China too fought a war back in 1962. Then in 2019 there was the border clash.
“They infringed on Indian sovereignty. And since then, the Indians have relied on the relationship with the United States, with Japan, with Australia to support them politically in this border dispute, but more importantly to put India's weight behind our efforts,” he said.
“All that now is at risk and the Indians are also vying with the Chinese in a way for leadership in Asia. India has surpassed China in population. India's economy is not nearly as big or as strong as China's. It is like the tortoise and the hare. China's been racing ahead for a generation now. But India is steadily making progress. Its economy is growing at a much faster rate than the Chinese economy,” he pointed out.
The US at this point cannot count on India in their efforts to limit the influence of China due to Trump’s tariffs and trade decisions, said a former US envoy to China. He also said pushing India away is the biggest foreign policy mistake that the US, under President Donald Trump, has made.
Harvard professor and former US Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, in the ‘How To Fix It with John Avlon’ podcast said, “If we want to be strategic about this, we've got to think of the world we want to live in…and your little kids and my grandchildren will want to live in 15, 20, 30 years from now. We should want to have India on our side because China's going to be a competitor with the United States for our kids and our grandchildren. So I actually think if you look at all of American foreign policy, this mistake of driving India away from us, it's about the most serious mistake that I think President Trump has made since he took office. And that is saying something.”
Speaking about the India-US relationship going back decades, Burns said, “Every American president, Democrat and Republican, going back to Bill Clinton, has made a concerted effort, a real national priority, to grow closer to India so that we can have some leverage on China. India can help the United States, Japan, our other allies in East Asia to limit China's expansion of power in the Indo-Pacific. And I was involved in this within the George W Bush administration where India was a major priority. Every president has done this and suddenly President Trump has put the issue of tariffs beyond our national security.”
Burns said the 50 per cent tariffs on Indian products is injurious to the Indian economy, which has driven Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “do something he had not done in seven years – and that's visit China”. The former envoy referred to the visuals from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation that put the camaraderie between PM Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin on full display.
“This means that the United States at this point cannot count on India to be part of our effort in a lot of different ways to limit what the Chinese are trying to do,” he said.
Referring to the QUAD, Burns said that the Chinese “feared” the bloc because they knew “that these were four very powerful countries in the Pacific who wanted to live in peace with China, but didn't want to be pushed around by them”. Burns said that this has been a strategy of the first order of importance for the US. “And I really hope that the Trump administration is going to reconsider this and stop thinking that tariffs are the be all and end all,” he said.
Burns added that India has been a major military partner of the US in the last two decades. “Not an ally, but a partner in the Bay of Bengal to the east of the subcontinent in the Western Pacific. We do air exercises, naval exercises. Our militaries are working together. And this is of profound importance to us,” he said.
“We don't want that to be at risk because suddenly we're challenging India economically in a way that's going to be very injurious to them. Well, I mean this is an own goal, right?” he said.
Burns said the US strategy, going all the way back to Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, was to drive a wedge between China and Russia, two communist nations. He added that India and China too fought a war back in 1962. Then in 2019 there was the border clash.
“They infringed on Indian sovereignty. And since then, the Indians have relied on the relationship with the United States, with Japan, with Australia to support them politically in this border dispute, but more importantly to put India's weight behind our efforts,” he said.
“All that now is at risk and the Indians are also vying with the Chinese in a way for leadership in Asia. India has surpassed China in population. India's economy is not nearly as big or as strong as China's. It is like the tortoise and the hare. China's been racing ahead for a generation now. But India is steadily making progress. Its economy is growing at a much faster rate than the Chinese economy,” he pointed out.