Anita Inder Singh 
Global geopolitics will impact India in unprecedented ways in 2025 – and that will not be just because Donald Trump became president of America for the second time and may not fulfil Indian hopes that the personal bonhomie between him and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will keep the Indo-US relationship on an even keel.
Trump’s simultaneous cultivation of China, as highlighted by his invitation to President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration, and his threats to impose trade tariffs if Beijing does not meet Washington’s needs, could be harmful to India.
India’s domestic and geopolitical challenges
India’s GDP growth slowed to 5.4% in the third quarter of 2024. The IMF has predicted that global uncertainties will result in a weaker Indian economy this year. Modi’s former economic adviser, Arvind Subramaniam, even opines that India’s present political dispensation lacks ideas for long-term growth and boosting employment.
Meanwhile, China’s military rise has been facilitated by its economic progress – and as 2025 begins there are concerns in the West about its high-tech abilities, which may be surpassing those of Europe. The US alone is ahead of China in high-tech.
These factors will have a bearing on India’s hopes of playing an enhanced role on the international stage. The visit of the American president to the Quad summit in Delhi, which was postponed because of the US elections last November will send out feelers about the ways in which India and the US can continue to collaborate in Asia. At the top of Washington’s agenda will be the containment of China’s economic and military power in Asia, so American assessments of India will be based on the extent to which, and in what ways, it can contain China.
At another level, Trump could strike a deal with China, which is an important trading partner of both the US and India. In fact, India is more dependent on both the US and China than they are on India – 15% of China’s exports go to America, 3 .6% to India. The US buys 18% of India’s exports, China 3.8%; 7% of China’s imports come from the US, 0.70% from India.
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Moreover, India’s import landscape is dominated by China, which accounts for 18% of its imports, while the United States contributes around 6.3%.
China is not the equal to the US economically or militarily. But the inequalities between the two countries are less than analogous inequalities between India and China on one side – and India and the US on the other. Trump’s hostility to China does not rule out striking a deal with Beijing if China lowers tariffs on American goods. Would India be able to offer Trump’s government a similar deal to improve ties with the US while competing with China? Trump’s blowing hot and cold on China would worry India.
At another level, the visit of President Vladimir Putin to India – its date so far unannounced and the first since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 – may be controversial. Trump will impose fresh sanctions on Russia if Moscow does not make peace with Ukraine and restrict oil buys from Russia. These sanctions will affect India and China the most, since they are Russia’s largest oil customers.
The West has remained silent on defence minister Rajnath Singh’s praise for the India-Russia friendship in December 2024, where he described it as “higher than the highest mountain and deeper than the deepest ocean”, echoing the hyperbolic language used by Russia and China to describe their own relationship as “the best period in their history”.
India is, in fact, commissioning a Russian stealth frigate and both countries announced their largest energy deal in December 2024. Trump 1.0 opposed India’s decision to buy Russia’s S-400 missile in 2018 – he wanted New Delhi to buy American military equipment instead. His possible opposition to the frigate deal could see India and the US sailing on choppy waters.
So far India has managed to maintain good relations with both Russia and the West while distinguishing itself from other countries that are aligned with Moscow, including China, North Korea and Iran. Whether Trump will facilitate India’s “strategic autonomy” while criticising its stance on Russia and its high tariffs is an open question.
On another plane, three Western countries with large Indian diasporas will also be on New Delhi’s agenda.
The Indian diaspora in Britain is more than 1.7 million, which will lend importance to King Charles’ first official trip to India in 2025. The year could see the UK and India drawing up a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. At the moment, the signing of a free trade agreement between them, on the agenda since Boris Johnson’s premiership, remains uncertain because London has resisted India’s demand that the FTA be linked to visas for Indian workers.
The resignation of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who blamed New Delhi for the assassination of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil in 2023, will raise questions about a reset in Indo-Canadian relations. This is important because Canada has a large India diaspora comprising some 1.5 million people. Over the last two years Canada has reduced the number of visas for Indian students and tourists.
The Trump administration, which includes Indian-Americans, is divided on the numbers of different kinds of visas that should be issued to Indian citizens. That the United States was home to about 4.8 million Indian Americans in 2022, and that two-thirds of Indian Americans (66%) are immigrants, are reasons for New Delhi to reflect on which political and economic winds are likely to blow in India’s favour.
India’s strategic autonomy in a divided world
India often reiterates its longstanding commitment to strategic autonomy and multipolarity. It also affirms that it is non-Western but not anti-West. Essentially this means that New Delhi seeks to maintain relations with major poles of influence in the international system – whether those poles include both Moscow and Washington and their conflicting stances on the war in Ukraine – or both Tehran and Tel Aviv in the context of military contests in the Middle East.
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In order to become a strong pole itself, India needs to show how its strategic and economic needs and interests converge with those of friendly countries. And when it comes to hosting the Indian diaspora and giving Indians a chance to display their skills and send substantial remittances home to India, Western countries offer much more than Russia, where there are merely 14,000 Indian citizens. India is in the embarrassing position of seeing some of its citizens dying fighting for Russia in its war against Ukraine, although Modi raised the issue of early discharge of Indians in the Russian Army during his talks with Putin in Moscow last year.
As China and the US reshape Asia’s geopolitics, India’s friends are more likely to aid its rise if it crafts long term strategies and shows resolve in building a well-functioning economy through efficient governance. On trade ties New Delhi should also show sound judgment in distinguishing between demanding friends like America, Britain, Canada and the European Union and a territorially expansionist China. That will certainly be to India’s advantage and shore up its world standing.
Anita Inder Singh is a founding professor of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution in New Delhi. She has been a Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington DC and has taught international relations at the graduate level at Oxford and the LSE.