WASHINGTON: A panel of leading American strategic experts has cautioned that the United States and India are navigating one of the most fragile phases in their relationship in nearly a quarter century, with political mistrust, stalled trade talks and geopolitical pressures testing what has long been seen in Washington as a critical partnership in the Indo-Pacific.
For the last 25 years, there has been a concerted effort among both parties in the United States and governments of different kinds in India to transform the US-India relationship, as observed by Richard Fontaine at the Centre for a New American Security (CNAS), in a discussion here in the American Capital on Wednesday (local time).
That effort, he said, was widely viewed as "one key to responding to China and to the challenges of security in the Indo-Pacific."
"But we're in a different place now, " Fontaine said, pointing to an ongoing trade dispute, hardening rhetoric and the view among some in Washington that relations "are in the lowest point in the past 25 years."
'Worst shape in almost 25 years'
Lisa Curtis, Senior Fellow and Director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at CNAS and a former senior official in the first Trump administration, delivered the starkest assessment. "The US-India relationship is probably in the worst shape it's been in in almost 25 years, " she said.