In an interview, where he discusses American pressure on India to stop buying Russian oil, both in terms of tariffs and sanctions, the prospects of a trade deal and the wider deterioration in India-US relations, which includes President Trump’s changed attitude to the Indo-Pacific and his changed relationship with Pakistan as well as the possibility of an improvement in US-China relations, India’s former Foreign Secretary and former Chairman of the National Security Advisory Board, Shyam Saran, says the real problem in Indo-US relations is that India is not as important a country to President Trump as it was to his predecessors or, indeed, even in his first term as president.

He says: “Even if we get a trade deal in the aftermath of reducing Russian oil purchases I cannot see our relations with the US going back to where they were”. Saran agrees that we will have to grit out teeth, grin and bear it.

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