The India-US relations will become an important part of President-elect Donald Trump’s diplomacy to counter the growing influence of China. With the purpose of stabilising the external situation and straightening out problems at home, the Trump administration will seek an improving relationship with India. However, due to its own domestic problems, India can only play a limited role in assisting the US in solving headaches, thus the Trump administration will not put US-Indian relations in a very important position, and its enthusiasm for building a quasi-alliance with India will decrease. As a global power sticking to non-alignment diplomacy, India probably will not set a goal of allying with the US in suppressing China as the US hopes. Therefore, there are unbridgeable differences between American intentions for developing a close relationship with India to balance China viz-a-viz India’s concept of developing independent diplomacy toward the US and China. When dealing with global challenges such as climate change, nuclear proliferation and terrorism, the US may require India to make greater contributions to specific fields which only the US is concerned about, it said. This will reduce India’s trust in the US, and weaken the basis for deepening bilateral cooperation to the level the US looks forward to. The intensive US-India security cooperation during the Obama administration will be changed due to Trump’s adjustment in diplomacy, easing off the pressure on China. Besides, the prospect of US-Indian cooperation in trade is not optimistic, and it will only exert a limited effect on China’s influence on regional trade, it said. Trump questioned for the first time after his election, China’s currency devaluation and the Beijing’s claims on South China Sea is an indicator there could a tilt in US policy to neutralize the Chinese impact in the region.
