New Delhi: In a departure from the strategic embrace of the last decade, the second Trump administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) signals a clear cooling in the language that once placed India near the top of Washington’s priorities, with a stronger tilt toward a more transactional approach.

An analysis of the newly released document reveals a shift away from the "Major Defense Partner" status championed by the Biden administration and the "leading global power" designation of Donald Trump’s own first term, with the emphasis now placed on trade reciprocity and burden sharing.

The NSS is a legislatively mandated report that every new administration must transmit to Congress, outlining its national security vision.

While New Delhi remains a key player in the Indo-Pacific, the 2025 strategy mentions India fewer times and with less strategic weight than the Biden administration’s 2022 report. India appears only four times, compared to seven mentions during the Biden period.

“We must continue to improve commercial (and other) relations with India to encourage New Delhi to contribute to Indo-Pacific security, including through continued quadrilateral cooperation with Australia, Japan, and the United States ('the Quad'),” the 2025 strategy states, representing one of its few substantive references to India.

The report also states that India should be part of efforts to bring together allies and partners “to cement and improve our joint positions in the Western Hemisphere and, with regard to critical minerals, in Africa”.

Another reference is tied to securing the lanes of the South China Sea. “This will require not just further investment in our military, especially naval, capabilities, but also strong cooperation with every nation that stands to suffer, from India to Japan and beyond, if this problem is not addressed”.

Repeats claim of settling India-Pakistan conflict

The first mention, as The Wire noted, is a claim that appears with regard to recent history. In his opening letter, President Trump asserts that his administration has “settled eight raging conflicts”, specifically listing a war between “Pakistan and India”. This assertion, that the United States has “negotiated peace” between the nuclear armed neighbours, has been repeated by Trump more than fifty times in public, despite India’s public dismissal of the claim and its statement that the four-day clash in May had ended due to communication between the two militaries.

The contrast with the Biden administration’s 2022 strategy is striking. That document described India as “the world’s largest democracy and a Major Defense Partner” and said “the United States and India will work together, bilaterally and multilaterally, to support our shared vision of a free and open Indo Pacific”.

Just like in the 2022, the December 2017 NSS of the first Trump administration had had also mentioned India as a rising power. “We welcome India’s emergence as a leading global power and stronger strategic and defense partner,” It stated.

The Obama administration maintained consistent attention to India across its two strategies. The 2015 document declared, "We continue to strengthen our strategic and economic partnership with India," describing the relationship as rooted in "inherent values and mutual interests" as "the world's largest democracies." It supported "India's role as a regional provider of security and its expanded participation in critical regional institutions.”

The 2010 Obama administration strategy similarly positioned India among "other 21st century centres of influence" alongside China and Russia, emphasising "deeper and more effective partnerships" and working with India to "promote strategic stability, combat terrorism, and advance regional economic integration in South and Central Asia.

Even the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, barely gets a mention. The Biden administration’s 2022 report cited a "revitalized Quad" six times, framing it as a premier partnership for delivering vaccines and climate solutions. The 2025 strategy mentions the Quad only once, and strictly as a tool to "encourage" India’s security participation.

Pakistan received just one mention in the Trump administration's 2025 strategy – and that reference is to claim credit for having "negotiated peace between Pakistan and India" as one of eight conflicts the administration purportedly resolved in its first eight months back in office.

However, tonally, the lack of mention contrasts with the negative appearance in the first Trump administration's strategy when both times critically in relation to Afghanistan and combatting terrorism, reflecting deteriorating relations.

The Biden administration's 2022 strategy didn’t even mention Pakistan once – a far cry from the strategic partnership language of the Obama years. China remains the central focus of US national security strategy, though the nature and intensity of that focus has shifted significantly. The Biden administration's 2022 strategy characterised China as "America's most consequential geopolitical challenge" and "the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it."

The Trump administration's 2025 strategy reframes the relationship from primarily geopolitical competition to economic rebalancing.

"President Trump single-handedly reversed more than three decades of mistaken American assumptions about China," the strategy declares, criticizing how "American elites – over four successive administrations of both political parties—were either willing enablers of China's strategy or in denial."

The document's section on Asia is titled "Win the Economic Future, Prevent Military Confrontation," emphasising that "in the long term, maintaining American economic and technological preeminence is the surest way to deter and prevent a large-scale military conflict."

The strategy notes that China "got rich and powerful, and used its wealth and power to its considerable advantage," detailing how Beijing has strengthened its hold on global supply chains: "China's exports to low-income countries doubled between 2020 and 2024. The United States imports Chinese goods indirectly from middlemen and Chinese-built factories in a dozen countries, including Mexico."

"Trade with China should be balanced and focused on non-sensitive factors," aiming to restore "American economic independence" through "reciprocity and fairness."

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