India has eased back on several major American defence procurements, a step that follows Washington’s decision to sharply raise tariffs on Indian goods.
Officials familiar with the matter say negotiations for Stryker combat vehicles, Javelin anti-tank missiles, and a new tranche of Boeing P-8I maritime surveillance aircraft, together worth more than $3.5 billion are no longer proceeding at their earlier pace. A planned trip by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to Washington, intended to showcase these deals, has been shelved.
The slowdown comes days after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed an additional 25% tariff on Indian exports, taking total duties to roughly 50%, a level more common to punitive sanctions than routine trade disputes. The administration’s justification is India’s ongoing purchase of Russian oil, which Washington argues indirectly supports Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Delhi insists the pause is temporary. But with domestic exporters facing new hurdles in the U.S. market, political logic makes it hard to sign off on high-value American defence orders. One official noted privately that “optics matter as much as strategy”, especially with elections always on the horizon.
Over the past decade, India has diversified its military suppliers, adding French, Israeli and American systems to an arsenal once dominated by Russian hardware. The Ukraine war and Russia’s constrained production capacity have reinforced that shift. Yet tariffs of this magnitude risk slowing procurement momentum towards U.S. manufacturers.
Energy remains the complicating factor. Russian crude, sold at a discount, is a fiscal cushion for India’s inflation management. Washington has hinted at alternative supply arrangements, though price parity with Moscow is far from assured.
Other aspects of the strategic relationship, joint military drills, intelligence cooperation, and defence technology initiatives remain intact. But the dispute underscores how quickly economic measures can ripple into the security sphere.
For some in Delhi, the moment has an unsettling historical resonance. In 1998, after India’s nuclear tests, the U.S. froze military cooperation under sweeping sanctions, setting back relations for years. Trump’s latest tariffs, while framed as trade policy, carry a similar undertone. Two decades of carefully rebuilt trust could now be tested in ways neither side had planned for.
