U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent lunch meeting with Pakistan’s military chief has triggered a private diplomatic protest from India, serving as a warning to Washington about potential risks to their bilateral ties. This development comes as New Delhi reportedly recalibrates its relationship with China as a strategic hedge, according to officials and analysts.
The meeting, coupled with other emerging tensions in the U.S.-India relationship after decades of strong ties, has cast a shadow over ongoing trade negotiations. This is particularly significant as the Trump administration considers imposing tariffs against India, a key partner in the Indo-Pacific.
Three senior Indian government officials, directly aware of the matter, informed Reuters that India attributes cross-border terrorism to Pakistan, especially its military establishment. They conveyed to the U.S. that wooing Field Marshal Asim Munir sends “the wrong signals,” creating a “sore spot that will hamper relations going forward.” Pakistan, for its part, denies supporting militants who attack Indian targets, asserting that New Delhi has provided no evidence of its involvement.
While U.S.-India ties have generally strengthened over the past two decades despite minor setbacks, partly due to both countries seeking to counter China, the current challenges are distinct, according to Michael Kugelman, a Washington-based senior fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation think tank.
“The frequency and intensity with which the U.S. is engaging with Pakistan, and seemingly not taking Indian concerns into account, especially after India’s recent conflict with Pakistan, has contributed to a bit of a bilateral malaise,” Kugelman explained. “The concern this time around is that one of the triggers for broader tensions, that being Trump’s unpredictability, is extending into the trade realm with his approach to tariffs.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office and India’s foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment, though the foreign ministry had previously stated it had “taken note” of the Trump-Munir meeting. A U.S. official, declining to comment on private diplomatic communications, emphasized that the United States maintains strong relationships with both India and Pakistan and does not compare its bilateral relationships.
Lunch at the White House and its Implications
The U.S. appears to have adopted a different approach towards Pakistan following a brief conflict in May between the nuclear-armed rivals. This conflict erupted after India launched strikes on what it described as terrorist targets across the border, in response to a deadly attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir the previous month. After four days of aerial dogfights, missile, and drone attacks, the two sides agreed to a ceasefire.
Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan have engaged in regular skirmishes and fought three full-scale wars since their independence in 1947, with two of these conflicts centered on the disputed Kashmir region.
Weeks after the May fighting, Trump hosted Munir for lunch at the White House. This represented a significant boost in ties with Pakistan, a country whose relationship with the U.S. had largely languished under both Trump’s first term and Joe Biden’s administration. Notably, it was the first time a U.S. president had hosted the head of Pakistan’s army, widely considered the most powerful figure in the country, at the White House without senior Pakistani civilian officials present.
Indian leaders have voiced concerns that Munir’s perspective on India and Pakistan is deeply rooted in religion. “Tourists were murdered in front of their families after ascertaining their faith,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said in May, referring to the Kashmir attack. “To understand that, you’ve got to also see… you have a Pakistani leadership, especially their army chief, who is driven by an extreme religious outlook.” Pakistan counters that it is Modi who is driven by religious extremism, asserting that his brand of Hindu nationalism has infringed upon the rights of India’s large Muslim minority. Modi and the Indian government deny discriminating against minorities.
Munir’s White House meeting further exacerbated India’s displeasure over Trump’s repeated insistence that he averted nuclear war between the two nations by threatening to halt trade negotiations. This comment drew a sharp rebuke from Modi, who informed Trump that the ceasefire was achieved through direct talks between the army commanders of the two nations, not through U.S. mediation.
In the days following his June 18 meeting with Munir, officials from Modi’s office and India’s national security adviser’s office separately called their U.S. counterparts to register a protest, two of the officials confirmed. This protest had not been previously reported.
“We have communicated to the U.S. our position on cross-border terrorism, which is a red line for us,” a senior Indian official stated. “These are difficult times… Trump’s inability to understand our concerns does create some wrinkle in ties,” he added, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
A Pakistani readout of the meeting indicated that Trump and Munir discussed the continuation of counter-terrorism collaboration, under which the U.S. has previously provided weapons to Pakistan, a non-NATO U.S. ally, and explored ways to further strengthen ties. Two Indian officials expressed concern that any arms Pakistan receives from the U.S. could potentially be turned against India if the neighbors were to find themselves in conflict again.
A Harder Stance and Diplomatic Recalibration
Despite what were once public displays of cordiality between Trump and Modi, India has adopted a slightly harder stance against the U.S. in recent weeks, and trade discussions have also slowed, according to Indian officials and an Indian industry lobbyist. Modi notably declined an invitation from Trump to visit Washington after the G7 meeting in Canada in June.
Earlier this month, New Delhi proposed retaliatory duties against the U.S. at the World Trade Organization, signaling that trade talks were not progressing as smoothly as before the India-Pakistan clashes.
Harsh Pant, head of foreign policy at India’s Observer Research Foundation think tank, suggests that India, like other nations, is attempting to navigate its relationship with Trump and is recalibrating ties with China as a hedge. “Certainly there is an outreach to China,” he said. “And I think it is mutual… China is also reaching out.”
Last week, India’s Jaishankar made his first visit to Beijing since a deadly 2020 border clash between Indian and Chinese troops. India is also making moves to ease restrictions on investments from China that were imposed following the 2020 clash. This thaw comes despite India’s often difficult relations with China and Beijing’s close ties and military support to Pakistan.
However, New Delhi’s concern about Trump’s own engagement with China, which has ranged from conciliatory to confrontational, appears to have contributed to its shift in stance on Beijing. Christopher Clary, an associate professor of political science at the University at Albany, New York, explained, “With an unpredictable dealmaker in the White House, New Delhi cannot rule out Sino-U.S. rapprochement.”
“India is troubled by Chinese help to Pakistan and growing Chinese influence elsewhere in India’s near abroad, such as Bangladesh,” Clary added. “Yet New Delhi has largely concluded that it should respond to creeping Chinese influence by focusing its pressures on its nearest neighbours and not on China.”
