Alaska Summit: The Impending Trump-Putin Meeting And Its Bearing on India

India is suffering the consequence of having little or no leverage with its principal strategic partner, the US.

Trump’s moves have shaken the global order.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

The enormous churning that US President Donald Trump has unleashed is upon us. He has set about upturning the world trading system. But in the process, he  has also triggered a churn in global geopolitics.

All this is being manifested in the recent set of developments—the forthcoming Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, their first since 2019; the planned annual summit between Narendra Modi and Putin that will see the latter in India for the first time since 2021; Modi’s visit to Beijing to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, his first visit to China since 2018.

There is a meeting still pending between Trump and Xi, who had last met in the G20 summit in Osaka in 2019. And from the Indian point of view, there are expectations of a Modi-Trump summit at the sidelines of an expected Quad summit scheduled to be held in New Delhi later this year. And then there have been phone calls—Trump to Putin, Modi and Trump, and now Zelensky and Modi.

Trump’s Disruptive Legacy

Many of these developments have been set in motion by the turbulence introduced into global politics by Trump. By now it should be clear that his multiple lines of attack will remake the global system, whether he intends to or not. It will not be just trade but the US polity and society, as well as the global order. He has taken the US out of the Paris Climate Change Accords, the WHO, the UNESCO, and torpedoed the WTO.

He has eliminated USAID, gutted the US federal bureaucracy, attacked Ivy League institutions and undermined higher research institutions like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Many suggest that the Trump momentum will lose force after the mid-term elections in the United States next year. But mark that Trump himself has another 3 ½ years to go as President. So far, notwithstanding his attack on the US bureaucracy, social welfare programmes and race relations, his popularity remains undimmed with his MAGA base.

He has sometimes stated that he might seek another term in 2028, though it is barred by the US constitution, and he will be 82 years old then. As of now, JD Vance is being spoken off as a successor, but no doubt, Trump would suggest that thinking of a successor would be premature.

Alaska: The High-Stakes Trump-Putin Meet

The Alaska summit between Putin and Trump can perhaps be the most consequential of the developments cited above. But as of now there seems little to suggest that Russia and Ukraine can achieve ceasefire, leave alone arrive at a mutually satisfactory agreement to end the war. Russia is sticking to its maximalist demands of occupying one-fifth of Ukraine, its renunciation of NATO membership and Zelensky’s removal as President.

Trump has vaguely alluded to a plan of swapping territories between Ukraine and Russia, though the details of his plan are fuzzy. 

Europe has been strongly supportive of Ukraine to little avail. So far, Trump has given considerable leeway to Putin, but he has been hardening his stand, including enabling more significant transfers of weapons to Ukraine and threatening oil tariffs on India.

Zelensky’s Monday phone call to Modi was aimed at getting India to cut of purchase of Russian oil and generate support for Ukraine in the peace process, something from which Kyiv has so far been excluded.

Just how Trump and Putin square the Ukraine circle is difficult to say. But a failure here will widen the  divide between Russia and the US with ripple effects on other geopolitical issues and alliances.

Almost certainly this will impact India, not just in building pressure on India to end its oil trade with Russia, but in pushing Moscow even closer to Beijing.

India is walking the Ukraine-Russia tightrope gingerly. On 9 August, in a statement, the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs welcomed the Russia-US summit and its potential to end the war quoting Modi’s September 2022 statement to Putin: “Today is not an era of war.”

A day earlier Modi had spoken to Putin and was briefed by the Russian leader on the war in Ukraine. According to a press release, the Prime Minister “reiterated India’s consistent position for peaceful resolution of the conflict.” And then we have had the Zelensky call.

The Perils of Being ‘On the Menu’

The Alaska summit has consequences for India’s relations with the US and Russia. If the two narrow their differences, it’s a win-win for India. If not, there is trouble.

For a variety of well-known reasons, New Delhi cannot afford to be in the position of having to choose between the two. The US, the most formidable economic power in the world, is a market, a source of investments, remittances, and technology for India. On the other hand, Russia offers India strategic weaponry not available elsewhere and unreserved geopolitical support, especially in the South Asia-Indian Ocean Region, and of late, it has been a major supplier of cheap petroleum.

Friendship with the US has helped us open doors in the countries like the UAE, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Japan. To a great extent it has been catalysed by the growing convergence between New Delhi and Washington in relation to China.

But Trump’s China policy remains wide open. On one hand he has taken tough measures against Beijing; on the other he has loosened the US embargo on semiconductors to China and the extended the tariff truce for another 90 days.

This suggests that the two are seeking a deal which could go beyond tariffs to geopolitical issues.

In the last few months, India has had to suffer the consequence of having little or no leverage with its principal strategic partner, the United States. It has been forced to look on as Washington has once again drawn closer to Islamabad and has feted the Pakistan Army chief in the White House. More setbacks could be in store were the US and China to arrive at a negotiated détente.

As for India, the Chinese mouthpiece The Global Times noted in a cruel, but palpable comment, “Perhaps, to the US, India may have never been a guest at the table—only an item on the menu.”

(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)