The end of an affair

Never in its history has India looked so pathetic on the world stage, never have its foreign relations been the godawful mess they are today. The credit for this goes to Messrs Modi and Jaishankar.

The spectacular unravelling of ties with the US is perhaps the best example of the ham-handedness that has characterised the Modi government’s management of its external affairs. Ties carefully crafted over 35 years lie in tatters, and it has more to do with Modi’s inability to stand up to a ‘dear friend’-turned bully than Trump’s unpredictability. Other world leaders, of nations small and big, have dealt with the bully much better.

The latest instance of the Trump administration’s growing contempt for India is the clampdown on Indian and US technology firms sponsoring foreign workers for what is known as a green card or permanent residence in the US. 

Trump has stopped Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant, Wipro and HCL, along with Microsoft, Capgemini and Adobe from applying for green cards for employees residing and working in the US on H-1B visas. The US labour secretary Keith Sonderling announced, “I am hereby suspending from the Permanent Labour Certification Program (PERM) some of the largest IT outsourcing firms in the world.”

The move is seen as a big blow to Indian techies employed in the US as well as these companies whose hiring costs will shoot up. The Indian ministry of external affairs has again mewed a timid ‘does not advance shared ambitions’ response.

The MEA is grasping at straws because in his second term as president, which began in January 2025, Trump has not seen India as a preferred partner, and it got much worse after the four-day war between India and Pakistan in May 2025. Pakistan and China, India’s two most difficult neighbours, are his priority.

His blunt message to skilled Indians is: get the hell out of the US. If Modi, Jaishankar and commerce minister Piyush Goyal have still not understood this, they are living in a fool’s paradise.

Trump’s vice-president J.D. Vance rubbed it in: “If you do the math, for every [American] worker Microsoft laid off, it replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants.” He claimed the company had retrenched 6,000 American workers in 2025 to employ 6,300 others on H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green card holders. India described Vance’s comment as ‘deeply offensive’. The MEA spokesperson said Vance was using ‘terminology that carries painful historical and colonial legacy connotations’. More mewing.

Microsoft is reportedly the largest filer for PERMs, and these companies are expected to demonstrate that employing an overseas person will not adversely impact the wages or job opportunities of Americans. Ironically, the Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, is of Indian origin, and was even conferred the US National Medal of Technology and Innovation by Trump earlier this month.

In a desperate attempt to affect unconcern, Goyal remarked the US clampdown
was “absolutely good for the Indian economy”. He argued the restrictions would reverse the brain drain, encourage skilled professionals to stay back and dramatically accelerate the growth of domestic start-ups and Global Capability Centres in India.

Last year, Trump imposed 50 per cent tariffs on Indian exports to America, before a US Supreme Court ruling reduced it to 10 per cent in February 2026. However, the Damoclean threat of 100 per cent duties, approved by US Congress on countries buying Russian oil, is still dangling over India. Chances are Trump has not invoked the provision yet to shore up the flow of diesel from Russia to the world to ease prices.

India can only hope that next month’s mid-term elections set him back, and Trump’s hostility towards India is curbed by legislative safeguards that may come in the wake. But there is no real relief in sight until and unless a friendly Democrat enters the White House.