A number of senior ex-US officials have already expressed concerns regarding the way Donald Trump has been dealing with both India and Pakistan and have warned of the perils of reinstating a hyphenated policy. In a co-op-ed in Foreign Affairs, former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and former Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell vehemently encouraged the Trump administration not to treat India and Pakistan as one. They said that Washington should acknowledge the special and extended importance of its relationship with India, which is not limited to regional politics.
Sullivan and Campbell pointed out that, although the US indeed has vital security interests in Pakistan, including counterterrorism operations and preventing nuclear arms proliferation, they are far fewer than the multidimensional relationship Washington has had with New Delhi. In recent years, they said, American diplomacy has been drawn towards India as a matter of course, as its contribution to world security, trade, and innovation has increased.
Their comments are timed at a time when Donald Trump has taken personal credit for the ceasefire between India and Pakistan after Operation Sindoor, which New Delhi has time and again refuted. Nevertheless, US-Pakistan relations have recently thawed, with Trump welcoming Pakistan army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, to the White House to talk about trade, economic development, and even cryptocurrency.
These two ex-officials also denounced the Trump move to impose 50 percent tariffs on India and termed it an unnecessarily confrontational step. They indicated that such theatrics might be a component of the Trump dealmaking approach, but they also could cause irreparable harm. These activities, along with challenges to India’s Russian oil imports and Trump rhetoric, have resulted in what Sullivan and Campbell described as a rapid and unfortunate decline in India-US relations.
Ending their discussion, the former officials asked Washington to recall why India has become one of the most significant strategic partners of America during the last 30 years.
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