Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen hailed the support Denmark and Greenland are getting from European countries over U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to impose new tariffs in his bid to gain control of the Arctic island. “I am pleased with the consistent messages from the rest of the continent: Europe will not be blackmailed,” Frederiksen wrote in a statement on Sunday reported by the BBC and other media. “The Kingdom of Denmark is receiving great support,” she wrote, describing how she has been in “intensive dialogue” with allies including the U.K., France and Germany. “We’re not the ones looking for conflict,” Frederiksen stated. “At the same time, it is now even clearer that this is an issue that reaches far beyond our own borders,” she added. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson was one of Frederiksen’s colleagues stressing that European countries “will not let ourselves be blackmailed.” “This is an EU issue that affects many more countries than those now being singled out,” Kristersson said in a post on X on Saturday. Frederiksen’s comments on Sunday came after Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the U.K. — the eights countries targeted by Trump’s tariff threat — banded together to defend the “pre-coordinated Danish exercise” in Greenland that was cited by Trump in his Truth Social post about the new tariffs. “It poses no threat to anyone,” the capitals argued, reaffirming that they “stand in full solidarity with the Kingdom of Denmark and the people of Greenland.” The U.S. threats of tariffs “risk a dangerous downward spiral,” the countries added.

BRUSSELS — Senior EU lawmakers want the European Parliament to freeze the EU-U.S. trade deal in response to Donald Trump’s threats to take over Greenland. The deal was deeply unpopular across party lines as it was seen as overwhelmingly favoring Washington, but European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sold it as the price of keeping Trump onside. However, Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric this week, saying “we need Greenland from the standpoint of national security,” and has repeatedly refused to rule out military intervention. As a result, MEPs from the center-left, liberal, green, and left-wing groups say the deal should be blocked. “I cannot imagine that in the current situation MEPs would vote for any trade measures benefiting the U.S.,” the Greens’ top trade lawmaker and chair of the Internal Market Committee Anna Cavazzini told POLITICO.  “We should have such a discussion, it’s inevitable,” added Brando Benifei, the Socialist lawmaker who chairs Parliament’s delegation for relations with the U.S. Under the deal, most EU exports are subject to a 15 percent U.S. tariff. To complete its side of the bargain, the EU also needs to pass legislation to abolish all tariffs on U.S. industrial goods, including the 10 percent it currently slaps on U.S. cars, and ease market access for some farm produce and seafood. “If we are to give it the green light, we need guarantees that the U.S. will stop its tariffs and its security-related threats,” said Renew’s trade heavyweight Karin Karlsbro. “The United States cannot take the EU’s support for the trade agreement for granted.”  Danish MEP Per Clausen, of The Left group, has circulated a letter among all MEPs asking them to support his call for Parliament President Roberta Metsola to freeze parliamentary work on the deal. The deadline for adding signatures is Tuesday. “If we accept this agreement while Trump is threatening the international order and making direct territorial claims against Denmark, it will be seen as rewarding his actions — and will only add fuel to the fire,” Clausen said.  The biggest political group in the Parliament, the European People’s Party (EPP), remains noncommittal. “These are separate matters,” said Željana Zovko, the group’s negotiator on the U.S. file, when asked whether the Parliament should freeze the trade deal over Greenland. The EPP’s top trade MEP, Jörgen Warborn, left the door to blocking the trade deal ajar. While the EU “must preserve” the deal as a basis for stable transatlantic trade, he said, “we are ready to act if necessary.” But the EPP lacks the numbers to pass the deal with right-wing and far-right allies alone. A united front by the Socialists, Renew and the Greens would be enough to put the agreement on ice.  The Parliament’s U.S. deal negotiators will meet on Wednesday to discuss next steps.

OTTAWA — Canada’s ambassador to the United States and its chief trade negotiator with the Trump administration said she is stepping down in the new year. “I have advised Prime Minister [Mark] Carney that I will be ending my tenure in the United States in the New Year. It has been the greatest privilege of my professional life to have served and represented Canada and Canadians during this critical period in Canada-U.S. relations,” Kirsten Hillman said in her resignation letter posted on X on Tuesday afternoon. Hillman’s departure comes after eight years in Washington, as the Carney government navigates President Donald Trump’s abrupt cancellation of bilateral trade talks in October and prepares for next year’s review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Hillman, a trade lawyer and career diplomat, was a key member of the Canadian negotiating team that faced off against Trump’s first administration during the talks that led to the creation of the USMCA. “While there will never be a perfect time to leave, this is the right time to put a team in place that will see the CUSMA Review through to its conclusion,” she wrote, using the Canadian acronym for the new North American trade pact. Despite the current trade disruptions and the aftermath of navigating the Covid-19 pandemic, Hillman said her greatest accomplishment was working to secure the release of two Canadian men who spent more than 1,000 days arbitrarily imprisoned in China from 2018 to 2021. “In a relationship as deep and complex as ours, pressing and consequential issues arise almost daily,” she wrote. “Yet none was more personal to me than the hundreds of hours I spent with U.S. and Chinese counterparts working for the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.”

BELÉM, Brazil — Gov. Gavin Newsom may be a climate president in waiting, but as a governor, he has one glaring weakness: He can’t sign treaties with other countries. Newsom is returning to a time-tested technique to exercise soft power at COP 30 this week: signing voluntary agreements, joint statements and other pointedly non-binding memorandums of understanding. Newsom and his administration inked new pacts with a bevy of governments both national and local, including Nigeria, the German state of Baden-Württemberg and the host Brazilian state of Pará. They join a long roster of agreements stretching back decades, including a program former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger set up to promote collaboration on forests and climate with governors from places like Mexico, Côte d’Ivoire and Indonesia and former Gov. Jerry Brown’s Under 2 Coalition, launched with Baden-Württemberg, to promote subnational climate action. “It’s a part of a building,” Newsom told POLITICO while in Brazil. “It’s about continuity. It’s about calling cards. It’s about relationships.” There are limits to the pacts that draw sniffs from some longtime climate diplomacy observers. Many of them focus on research, but California’s public universities, under pressure from Trump, haven’t necessarily rushed to defend international researchers. They also often mention trade, but nothing has emerged in terms of deals circumventing Trump’s tariffs. But the agreements represent some of the only leverage California really has in the international arena. Brown sometimes required MOUs as a condition of meeting with the foreign officials clamoring for his time. And Newsom likes them: He’s been a driving force behind an increase in bilateral pacts, aides said, this year alone with Denmark, Kenya and individual states in Brazil and Mexico. When he looked earlier this year at a map of agreements California had signed, he remarked on the number of jurisdictions that weren’t colored in, one said. While in Brazil, he fielded on-the-fly pitches from business and NGO leaders for agreements on strengthening economic ties between Brazil and California and incorporating Indigenous perspectives into forest policy. “Let’s get it done,” he told Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot on Tuesday before slipping into an at-capacity room to excoriate Trump and promise California as a “stable and reliable partner” through changing administrations. Some of the pacts do lead to policy and technical exchanges. California policy experts have hosted foreign counterparts or traveled abroad to influence policies such as the creation of new carbon markets; conversely, they’ve learned about wildfire fighting from places like Australia, and groundwater mapping from Denmark. Some serve as symbolic markers: In Monday’s joint statement with Baden-Württemberg, the two states don’t promise any particular result, but rather to “encourage each other to be more ambitious.” Perhaps the most substantive agreement Newsom’s administration signed in Brazil was with Chile, whose environmental representatives he met in Belém on Wednesday. In the meeting, they talked about sharing data captured by methane-detecting satellites that California launched with the nonprofit Carbon Mapper and several universities and philanthropies. “The utilization of that open data in Chile, with the resources that we’re providing in the absence of federal resources, is just a tangible example of those opportunities to highlight, promote and partner,” Newsom said in Brazil on Wednesday. Notably absent from his agenda during his fly-by visit of the climate talks: any new joint major announcements or agreements with the U.S.-based climate alliances he’s formally chairing. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico was in Belém too, but Newsom left Wednesday for a trip deeper in the Amazon without issuing any joint statements.

President Donald Trump touches down in Malaysia Sunday seeking to bolster economic ties with the region amid a high-stakes trade war with China. Missing from the agenda: finalizing the splashy trade deals he announced this summer with three of Southeast Asia’s biggest economies. The president in July touted agreements with Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines as the White House raced to secure as many trade deals as possible before a self-imposed deadline to raise tariffs. But beyond the celebratory social media posts, the White House provided little detail on the terms to lower U.S. duties. The three countries openly disputed some of the things Trump claimed they’d agreed to. And aside from a fact sheet on the Indonesian agreement, the administration has not released further updates in the ensuing months. Trump is not expected to announce any new progress on the negotiations in Kuala Lumpur, as talks with the three governments drag on, according to three people with knowledge of the talks, although he is poised to unveil new preliminary deals with neighboring Cambodia and Malaysia. The struggle to finalize terms with Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines highlights the fragile nature of the handshake agreements the White House rolled out en masse this summer, which didn’t address thorny areas of dispute. That’s particularly true when it comes to the issues that involve China, including Beijing’s use of Southeast Asian countries as a transit point to duck U.S. tariffs. The failure to resolve those issues puts Trump in a weaker position going into a make-or-break meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, currently planned for Oct. 30. “These are very complex issues,” said Daniel Kritenbrink, who served as U.S. ambassador to Vietnam in the first Trump administration. “I’m not surprised it’s taken as much time as it has, because it’s really hard to wave a magic wand and solve these issues.” “You can agree in principle on a top line tariff rate pretty quickly, but then to actually come up with an implementation plan… that’s a much more complex piece of business,” Kritenbrink added. Chief among those issues are U.S. demands to prevent China from skirting tariffs by sending goods through other countries. Trump has already imposed a 40 percent tariff on these so-called transshipped goods — items shipped through another country in order to avoid high duties. But it’s also looking to impose new “rules of origin,” in an attempt to limit China’s practice of dodging tariffs by moving Chinese-made parts to a second country for assembly. Southeast Asian countries “have said over and over and over again, they don’t want to choose between the U.S. and China,” said Barbara Weisel, a former U.S. trade negotiator now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “But they understand that through these reciprocal trade agreements, they could well find themselves having to choose, and directly in the crossfire of the U.S.-China trade war and at the mercy of both.” That’s particularly the case for Vietnam, which has seen explosive growth in its exports to the United States since 2017, partly as a result of the tariffs that Trump imposed on China during his first term. In response, importers shifted large amount of production to Vietnam, and, the U.S. government alleges, so did China. Still, the administration may be able to come away with some trade victories on the trip, which starts with the ASEAN Summit, a biannual meeting of the regional group’s 10 nations. A senior administration official told reporters Friday that Trump will sign a “series of economic agreements” that “will further reshape the global economic order and secure more investments that will create high paying jobs and advance the reindustrialization of America.” “This will include forward-looking and tough trade deals that will benefit American workers, exporters, farmers, small businesses and digital innovators. He will also enter into critical mineral agreements that will rapidly unlock the region’s resources to create reliable industrial supply chains to support a resilient and prosperous world economy,” said the official, who was granted anonymity per the terms of the call. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has been actively negotiating with Cambodia and said earlier this month that the two had made significant progress in achieving a more fair and reciprocal trade relationship and securing commitments that break down longstanding trade barriers and tariffs.” Cambodia is a relatively small trading partner with a lopsided trading relationship with the United States. Last year, U.S. companies exported just $319 million worth of goods to the country, while Cambodian suppliers exported $12.3 billion worth of textiles, agricultural goods and other products to the United States. But Trump is also expected to announce a more significant breakthrough with Malaysia, one of the United States’ largest trading partners in the region, according to two people familiar. Kritenbrink said those talks have also made progress, and the two countries could be poised to announce a trade agreement while Trump is in Kuala Lumpur. U.S. two-way trade with all the ASEAN countries totaled about $475 billion last year, compared to $582 billion with China. Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore accounted for about 80 percent of that commerce, followed by Indonesia and the Philippines. Still, China is the biggest trading partner for ASEAN as a whole, highlighting the difficult choice the Trump administration is forcing the countries to make. Two-way trade totaled $984 billion in 2024, according to the Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency. For months, the White House implied that there would be a first mover advantage for any country that struck a trade agreement ahead of Trump’s shifting deadline for the imposing global “reciprocal” tariffs he unveiled in April. But despite being among the first to strike a framework deal with the administration this summer, the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam were stunned to see Trump issue virtually the same 19 to 20 percent tariff on most of Southeast Asia in August, including countries that did not offer nearly the same concessions. For Vietnam, the trouble started almost immediately after news of the trade deal hit Trump’s Truth Social page. Blindsided by both a tariff and transshipment rate that Vietnamese officials said was higher than expected, the government never formally accepted the agreement. That’s left both sides stuck in talks that are still centered on the baseline tariff rates both countries plan to impose. Negotiators haven’t yet begun discussions on transshipment — a complicated topic for Vietnam, which has become a growing manufacturing hub in the wake of Trump’s first term trade war with China. The administration has taken a two-pronged approach to transshipment. The first involves pushing countries to crack down on illegal efforts to dodge tariffs by moving products through third countries before they arrive in the U.S. But they also want to step up scrutiny of the origins of component parts used in countries’ exports — what’s known as “rules of origin” — to determine how high a tariff those goods should face. “When the President says ‘transshipment,’ I think he’s also focused, maybe primarily on foreign content, especially Chinese content,” Kritenbrink said. “That’s a much harder, trickier piece of business, both to control and to actually monitor and measure as well.” It remains unclear how restrictive the United States intends to be in either negotiating, or unilaterally imposing, new rules of origin, or how expansive its definition of transhipment will be, Weisel said. Countries in the region are also resisting U.S. requests to include “economic security” provisions in the trade agreements, which could require them to restrict exports of certain high-tech goods to the world’s second-largest economy and to limit Chinese investment in certain sectors of their economy. The ASEAN nations are “concerned about the reaction from China if they implement measures,” Weisel said, particularly after Xi warned Southeast Asian countries this year not to cooperate with the U.S. against China. A third big stumbling block as the United States pushes to wrap up individual negotiations with ASEAN countries is the rising number of U.S. national security trade investigations under Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act, any of which could lead to new tariffs on ASEAN goods after they have finalized a reciprocal trade deal with the United States. “It would be politically very difficult for them to have accepted a bilateral deal now, only to face in coming months a new 232 that significantly impacts their exports,” Weisel said. The multiple hangups — coupled with the sheer amount of trade deals U.S. negotiators are attempting to balance — leaves it unlikely that any formalized deals will happen this trip, let alone this year. “Unfortunately, the reality continues to reflect that reaching “final” reciprocal tariff deals with most ASEAN nations is not likely to happen in 2025,” said one industry official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations. Phelim Kine and Ari Hawkins contributed to this report.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Friday that Budapest was working on how to “circumvent” American sanctions on Russian oil and gas companies.  U.S. President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he was imposing “tremendous” new sanctions on Russia’s multinational Lukoil and its state-owned Rosneft, in the first such measures since he took office.   While the details are still being firmed up, the sanctions could force Moscow to shut off its remaining oil pipelines to Europe — and that’s bad news for Hungary, which gets the majority of its supplies from Russia.   Orbán — a longtime Trump ally — was defiant, however, claiming the “battle is not over yet,” and insisting Budapest will find ways to get around Washington’s sanctions.   “There are indeed sanctions in place against certain Russian oil companies,” he told the radio program “Good Morning Hungary.” “I started the week by consulting with MOL executives several times, and we are working on how to circumvent these sanctions,” Orbán said, referring to Hungary’s MOL energy company.   “Anyone who wants utility price reductions must defend Hungary’s right to buy oil and gas from Russia,” he added.   The Hungarian leader has previously argued that Budapest has no choice but to rely on Russia for cheap oil and gas due to its landlocked geography, insisting prices would explode for consumers otherwise.  Even as the rest of the EU has weaned off Moscow’s exports since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in the winter of 2022, Hungary and neighboring Slovakia have remained deeply dependent on the Kremlin to keep the lights on, claiming they have no real alternatives.  That’s despite the insistence of Croatia that Zagreb could meet both Hungary and Slovakia’s energy needs with its own capabilities, including the Adria oil pipeline.

BRUSSELS — EU exporters of wine and spirits will be able to sell their booze in Indonesia — but the bloc wants to keep it quiet. After years of talks, the EU and Indonesia announced Tuesday morning that they’d concluded negotiations on a trade deal, and Jakarta agreed for the first time to open up its alcohol market to Europe. However, under pressure from negotiators in Indonesia — the world’s largest Muslim-majority country — Brussels has agreed not to make a fuss about it. There’s not a single mention of it in the Commission’s official communications on the deal. “We are not publicizing it too loudly because of the sensitivity for our partners,” a senior EU official told POLITICO. The official was granted anonymity to speak freely, as were others quoted in this piece. “You asked the question, so I’m answering — but we didn’t want this in the headlines.” Behind the scenes, EU negotiators describe a tense balancing act — securing commercial wins for European exporters while treading carefully around Indonesia’s strict cultural and religious stance on alcohol.  “Some delegates on the other side were like, ‘I’m risking my life doing this deal,’” said another EU official, describing how their counterparts asked to avoid publicizing the alcohol-related provisions and omit them completely in any form of communication. A QUIET UNCORKING The quotas are modest — 1,985 tonnes for wine and 400 tonnes for spirits — and come with a duty of 5 percent. But in a country where alcohol imports have long been taboo, even this incremental market access marks a symbolic shift. The deal was struck using tariff rate quotas (TRQs), which allow a fixed volume of goods to enter at lower tariffs, with higher rates of 90 percent on wine and 150 percent on spirits kicking in beyond that threshold. While the quotas themselves are small, they represent a long-sought entry point into Indonesia for European producers.  To further downplay the move, EU officials even opted to present the volumes in tonnes — rather than the more industry-standard hectolitres — in what one EU official said was a deliberate attempt to “keep the numbers looking smaller.” According to another EU official, Jakarta even offered to give the EU the booze quotas. “It’s a huge concession to get them from Indonesia, which never offered concessions on alcohol to any partner,” the official said. BOOZE AND BALI Indonesia has one of the lowest alcohol consumption levels in Southeast Asia — just 0.1 liters of pure alcohol per capita per year. Access to alcohol is highly restricted outside of major cities and tourist enclaves, and public sentiment on liberalization is overwhelmingly negative. But in Bali — the country’s most tourism-heavy province — demand for alcohol is anything but symbolic. With more than 1.53 million Australians visiting Indonesia in 2024 — up 17 percent from the previous year — European negotiators made a clear pitch: Target tourist hubs like Bali, where alcohol is already flowing, and supply them with European products. “We aim at targeting tourists there,” the first EU senior official said. The Indonesian embassy did not reply to a request for comment. The result of the agreement is a diplomatic sleight-of-hand: a win for European exporters — just not one Brussels is boasting about. But with exporters eyeing the opportunity, the bottle may be too open to cork back.

COPENHAGEN — The G7 is seeking to move from “incremental” to “decisive” actions to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said. In an interview with POLITICO, Champagne said the G7 is “no longer in the incremental approach, but … decisive in order to put an end to the war.” The group of industrialized countries is “aligned on ambition and aligned on urgency,” he added. Champagne is chairing G7 talks between finance ministers, including on controversial plans to use Russian central bank assets frozen abroad to help fund Ukraine’s war effort. The G7 is under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to take greater action on Moscow to force Russian President Vladimir Putin into Ukraine peace talks. The U.S. sent a paper to other G7 countries earlier this month calling for 100 percent tariffs on China and India, stricter sanctions on Russian oil and gas, and new moves to use the Russian frozen assets to fund Ukraine. The EU and the U.K. have since put forward proposals to use Russian cash frozen in their territories to fund loans to Ukraine. And Brussels has come forward with a new sanctions package. The loans plan is controversial, raising questions over whether it is compatible with international law. Champagne would not give details of the G7 discussions, but he said the group is trying to be “coordinated” in its actions. “There are different initiatives, but … there is a desire to coordinate amongst ourselves and adopt a similar set of policies in action,” he said. Asked whether Canada could propose its own reparations loan plan, Champagne said “we’re very aligned.” NOT JOINING THE EU Champagne was in Copenhagen for talks with EU finance ministers, including sideline conversations around joint defense procurement and the frozen assets plan. He was keen to play up ties between the territories. “We’re very close,” he said, adding that Canada is “probably the country outside of Europe which has the closest link with the European Union,” and that Europe “has a desire to do more with Canada.” But Champagne ruled out the prospect of Canada joining the EU, saying: “We’re not there.”       Champagne had even warmer words for the U.K., describing the two countries as “kind of best friends,” and U.K. finance chief Rachel Reeves as a “good friend.” “We share a lot, we talk a lot, we text a lot because we’re very close,” he said. DEFENSE LINKS Canada received the green light from Brussels this week to start negotiations on accessing the EU’s €150 billion loans-for-arms program, known as SAFE. The U.K. is also starting negotiations on joining the program. Asked whether Canada would want to be included in the first joint procurement round, which would set a tight deadline for agreeing on rules around its participation with the EU, Champagne said: “I would think so … I think we want to be in the first wave, there’s no doubt.” “The defense procurement imperative is front and center,” he said, highlighting Canada’s critical minerals and icebreakers as products it could contribute to the procurement scheme. TRADE TIES Asked whether Canada is disappointed in the U.K. and the EU for capitulating to the U.S. by signing suboptimal trade deals to avoid punishing tariffs, Champagne said “everyone has to look at their own strategic interest.” “When I look at other countries, each of us started from a different base,” he said. “When you look at the different deals that have been struck … I think each of us found a way forward to restore a bit of certainty.” Although there “will still be volatility and uncertainty,” global trade is in “a more stable place now,” Champagne said. The EU is pushing for closer ties to the Pacific-centric trade group the CPTPP, which includes like-minded countries such as Canada, Japan, Australia and Mexico and is emerging as an alternative for rules-based trade away from the paralyzed World Trade Organization.   Champagne said he wants to “strengthen and expand” the CPTPP trading bloc, which he described as “a nice alternative” and “foundational for having a rule-based trading system in that part of the world.” “I see a lot of benefit, particularly as it seems more likely than ever that there won’t be many more … multilateral trading agreements of the same scope and scale,” Champagne said.  

Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s From Across the Pond column. When I traveled to India last February, I found a nation enthralled by America and its newly reelected president. It was a point of national pride that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the first foreign leader President Donald Trump welcomed to the Oval Office after his inauguration. And in contrast to opinion in Europe and elsewhere, polls showed a majority of Indians had confidence in Trump doing the right thing. While traveling around the country, I met young people who yearned for the opportunity to study at American universities and build a better future for themselves and their families. Business leaders were on the cusp of expanding exports to the world’s largest consumer market and building a stronger industrial base to compete with China, having been promised a quick trade agreement. Meanwhile, diplomats and military officers believed that mutual animosity toward China would bring the U.S. and India into a new strategic partnership.  After 25 years of steady bipartisan effort to expand America’s relationship with India, Trump’s return to power was widely viewed as the dawn of a bright future for everyone. What could possibly go wrong? A lot, it turns out.  For all the optimism about a quick trade deal and stronger bilateral ties, things began to sour quickly after Modi’s return from Washington. In late February, Indians watched as their fellow countrymen were deported by the U.S. Then, amonth later, Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs — socking India with a 26 percent duty on all imports into the U.S.  But the biggest blow to the relationship came in May, after India retaliated against Pakistan for a terrorist attack that killed 26 tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir. The fighting between the two countries escalated quickly, and by the third day, India was targeting a military base near the army division that oversees Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. This was hardly the first time the two countries came to serious blows — they have fought four wars in 75 years. But in the meantime, both nations have developed substantial nuclear arsenals, making any military confrontation that much more dangerous. At first, the U.S. feigned little interest in the conflict, with Vice President JD Vance telling Fox News: “We’re not going to get involved in the middle of a war that’s fundamentally none of our business.” But once the fighting escalated, both Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio got on the phone to both countries, and a ceasefire was quickly concluded. Trump immediately claimed credit for engineering the end to fighting, suggesting he used trade to bring both parties to heel. “We stopped a nuclear conflict,” the U.S. leader claimed. “I think it could have been a bad nuclear war, millions of people could have been killed, so I’m very proud of that.” But while Pakistan was quick to give the White House the credit it wanted, India insisted the deal had been reached bilaterally. Those in India who long warned about entangling alignments are now having a field day, and Narendra Modi himself is talking about the critical importance of self-reliance. | Antonio Lacerda/EPA Eventually, as trade talks between India and the U.S. continued to stall over agriculture and other issues, Trump and Modi spoke on the phone in June. I have been told that during this call, the U.S. president insisted Modi publicly give him credit for ending the fighting in May, and that he invited the Indian prime minister to the White House when the Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan Asim Munir would also be visiting.  Modi wasn’t about to consider either of these requests. India has always insisted its conflict with Pakistan is a purely bilateral issue, pointing to earlier agreements between the two countries that reject outside mediation. And as prime minister, Modi could never accept the idea of meeting with the Pakistani military chief as if they were equals. This was the last call between the two leaders. Washington’s stance in the trade negotiations hardened after Modi’s rejection of Trump’s entreaties, making a deal less likely. And Trump has been insisting that a final agreement be reached between him and Modi directly. However, the Indian leader knows what the U.S. president really wants — his public assent to the idea that Trump prevented a nuclear confrontation. This background helps partly explain why Trump decided to single India out for punishment for its purchase of Russian oil not long after. In early August, as the U.S. president indicated his growing displeasure with Russia over its war in Ukraine, he declared India a “dead economy” and announced an additional 25 percent tariff on the country for importing oil from Russia. Many countries buy Russian oil and other energy products — including the U.S., which buys enriched uranium for its nuclear reactors from Russia — but only India was punished. It was a confusing decision: The U.S. has long encouraged India to buy Russian oil, provided its purchases stay below the $60 oil cap agreed by Western countries. Without Russian supplies, oil prices would spike and fuel inflation. Plus, China is a far bigger buyer of oil and gas than India, yet no tariffs or sanctions were imposed on Beijing. So, after a quarter century of building a strategic partnership with the world’s most populous economy — its second-largest democracy and soon-to-be third-largest economy — why single India out? As commentators around the world were quick to note, it makes no economic, political or strategic sense. But the damage has already been done. The enrollment of Indian students in U.S. universities is down 40 to 50 percent from last year’s record high of 300,000. Businesses are looking for other export markets, aided by new trade deals with Britain and, soon, the EU. Indian officials are strengthening relations with Moscow, and Modi traveled to China for the first time in seven years. Those in India who long warned about entangling alignments are now having a field day, and Modi himself is talking about the critical importance of self-reliance. The U.S., meanwhile, is losing a strategic partner in an important part of the world. 

President Donald Trump has no plans to delay additional tariffs on India that are set to take effect Wednesday, according to a White House official, granted anonymity to discuss the administration’s plans. The new levies — imposed, in part, to pressure Russia to end its war on Ukraine by punishing one of its largest oil buyers — will raise the country’s tariff rate to 50 percent and are likely to inflame tensions between the world’s two largest democracies. They are set to take effect despite the hope among some in Trump’s orbit that last week’s appointment of Sergio Gor to be the next ambassador to India was a sign of an improving relationship between the two countries. Syed Akbaruddin, India’s former ambassador to the United Nations, said the new levies are being seen in India as “more than a trade dispute.” “Their imposition is viewed as a blow to confidence in the India–U.S. partnership,” Akbaruddin said. “If left unchecked, these could erode two decades of strategic convergence.” The U.S. hit India with a 25 percent tariff after the two countries failed to reach an initial trade agreement this summer, and relations worsened this month after Trump signed an executive order slapping an additional 25 percent levy over the country’s purchases of Russian oil. India is the second-largest purchaser of Russian oil behind China — but the Trump administration opted not to move forward with so-called secondary sanctions on the latter country amid a broader tariff denté, which expires in November. While some proponents of the U.S.-India relationship had hoped Trump would delay the imposition of the Russian oil tariffs, the administration signaled it would make good on the threat to hike tariffs on Monday when U.S. Customs and Border Protection uploaded a draft notice with guidance for importers, clarifying its plan for the additional 25 percent tariff hike. The additional tariffs are souring a once positive relationship between the two world leaders — who have called each other friends — and come as efforts to coordinate a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have stalled following a recent meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska. The Indians, meanwhile, have shown little sign of budging on their Russian oil purchases, which the government has framed as purely an economic decision. Now, India’s 50 percent tariff rate will be nearly as high as the 55 percent levy Chinese goods face. Mark Linscott, a former negotiator for the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office who was involved in negotiations with India during Trump’s first administration, described the new tariffs as “unfortunate.” “It’s hard to predict how things might unfold from here, but it’s clearly a low moment now,” Linscott said. A White House official, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the relationship between the two countries, said, they “don’t think this is necessarily the end of the relationship between the two countries.” The tariff-fueled rift with India may have geopolitical implications that go beyond the U.S.-India relationship. For much of this century, U.S. presidents have sought to pull New Delhi into closer strategic ties — and pry it away from its traditional relations with Moscow — through India’s membership in the China-countering group known as the Quad, which also includes Australia, Japan and the United States. Those efforts appeared to be bearing fruit as recently as January following a meeting in Washington with top diplomats from Quad countries when India’s Foreign Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told reporters that New Delhi was willing to nudge the grouping toward a greater defense and security focus. That initiative is likely dead as long as the Trump administration’s tariff punishment continues. The Indian embassy in Washington declined to comment, but India’s Ministry of External Affairs has previously called the tariffs “unfair, unjustified, and unreasonable,” and said that India “will take all necessary steps to protect its national interests.” In a modest concession to Washington, Indian refiners plan to trim their purchases of Russian crude in the coming weeks, according to reporting from Bloomberg. But it’s not clear if a slight reduction will move the needle for the Trump administration, and the country has no plans to sever its deep financial ties with Moscow. Still, the White House has maintained that it views the oil purchases as supporting the war in Russia, with Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro in a recent Financial Times op-ed calling it “profiteering by India’s Big Oil lobby.” Navarro has repeatedly defended the tariff hike being targeted specifically on India instead of China, pointing out that tariffs on some Chinese goods are already as high as 50 percent. India was one of the first countries to begin trade talks with the U.S., with Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreeing during a White House meeting in February to more than double bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030. Vice President JD Vance announced during a trip to India in April that the countries had finalized “terms of reference” for negotiations, and Trump teased for weeks in July that a trade agreement with India was close. The fact that the country did not receive one of Trump’s July tariff letters was widely seen as a good sign. That appeared to fall apart when Trump posted on Truth Social in late July “ALL THINGS NOT GOOD!” with India, especially with the country’s relationship to Russia. “Remember, while India is our friend, we have, over the years, done relatively little business with them because their Tariffs are far too high, among the highest in the World, and they have the most strenuous and obnoxious non-monetary Trade Barriers of any Country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. The new tariffs threaten to push India closer to not only Russia but China and other members of the so-called BRICS group of emerging economies that Trump has in recent weeks railed against. Still, proponents of the U.S.-India relationship haven’t given up hope. Trump and Modi could meet at the UN General Assembly in New York next month, which could give the men a chance to hash out their differences in person. “Despite the current negative commentary in India about the bilateral relationship, I believe that the Indian government would like to try to work things out — and I think the Trump administration has the same desire,” said Kenneth Juster, who served as U.S. ambassador to India during the first Trump administration. “While the current tariffs may be in effect for several weeks, I hope that the two leaders will meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in late September and get the relationship back on track.” Phelim Kine and Daniel Desrochers contributed to this report.