How Likely Is Trump To Play The Iranian & Russian Cards Against India In Their Trade Talks?

Making it prohibitively costly for Indian companies to conduct business along the Iranian-transiting North-South Transport Corridor and pressuring India into dumping Russia would harm the US’ own grand strategic interests vis-à-vis China and might thus only be bluffs or done in extreme scenarios.

It was assessed shortly after last year’s US elections that “Trump Can Repair The Damage That Biden Dealt To Indo-US Ties”, and while Modi’s visit last month was a step in the right direction, Trump has still been a lot tougher on India than expected. That’s because he believes that this approach will result in a comprehensive trade deal whereby India greatly lowers its tariffs and consequently allows American companies much more access to what’s now the world’s largest market.

The means to that end go beyond criticizing its high tariffs. Trump has threatened to modify or rescind India’s sanctions waiver for Iran’s Chabahar Port, while his Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik just repeated the lie that India is colluding with BRICS to create a new currency and pressured it to stop buying Russian arms while speaking at last week’s 2025 India Today Conclave. India has repeatedly denied that it’s de-dollarizing while its import of Russian arms has steadily decreased over the years.

These three pressure points – trade with Iran, ties with BRICS, and arms from Russia – are being creatively leveraged by the US in pursuit of the comprehensive trade deal with India that Trump envisages clinching to turbocharge his “Pivot (back) to Asia” after the Ukrainian Conflict ends. In the order that they were mentioned, the US’ pressure on India over Iran is meant to make it prohibitively costly for Indian companies to conduct business along the North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC).

That megaproject is a strategic priority for India since it aims to partially counterbalance Chinese influence over Russia, the Central Asian Republics, and Afghanistan through economic means. This goal also aligns with the US’, however, so it’s possible that Trump’s associated threats might just be a ploy to get India to lower its tariffs and/or pressure Iran into another deal with the US. As for the second lever, the one related to BRICS, this one is based on literal lies since India isn’t creating another currency.

Claiming otherwise is therefore probably meant to further pressure India into lowering its tariffs by impugning its international reputation in Western eyes and creating another pretext for the US to raise its own tariffs if their talks fail. It might also be that Trump plans to reinstate Biden’s pressure campaign upon India in that event, though more through geopolitical means like favoring Pakistan and Bangladesh than meddling in India’s internal affairs, in which case the BRICS lie could more compellingly justify this.

And finally, the last lever of pressure could be pulled if the nascent Russian-US “New Détente” amounts to naught since it could lead to CAATSA sanctions for India’s Russian arms imports. The US might also enforce secondary sanctions on India’s Russian energy imports too, which could be what Trump hinted at in his recent tweet and would align with the spirit of what his special envoy previously suggested as explained here. That could either force tariff concessions from India or ruin their relations if it refuses.

That zero-sum prediction is predicated on Russia’s importance in Indian grand strategy as a means of balancing China and the US, which could no longer happen if India dumped Russia under American duress, but the same goes for India’s importance in Russian grand strategy as regards the same goal. Just like India would become the US’ junior partner in that scenario, so too would Russia become China’s, the second outcome of which Secretary of State Marco Rubio explicitly said that the US wants to avoid.

The US would accordingly be harming its own grand strategic interests by imposing CAATSA sanctions and/or strictly enforcing secondary sanctions on Russian energy imports against India. This would either risk a rupture in relations with India if it defiantly refuses to capitulate to US pressure or turbocharge China’s superpower trajectory by turning resource-rich Russia into its junior partner. It’s therefore the so-called nuclear option and will likely only be considered if the “New Détente” amounts to naught.

Reflecting on these three pressure points that the US implied that it’ll creatively leverage in pursuit of a comprehensive trade deal with India, only the BRICS-related one would automatically go away if such an agreement was reached. The other two would likely remain as Damocles’ swords since they most directly target Iran and Russia, though the US would correspondingly expect India to help it convince those two to agree to the terms that the US proposed for their rapprochements if they reach a deal

Nevertheless, as was explained, the US would also be harming its own interests alongside India’s if it becomes prohibitively costly for Indian companies to trade with Russia, the Central Asian Republics, and Afghanistan via the NSTC and/or Russia is pushed into becoming China’s junior partner. For these reasons, while Trump and Lutnik hinted at the three cards that they hold, they might be bluffing to a large extent when it comes to playing the Iranian and Russian ones against India during their trade talks.