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For two decades, Washington and New Delhi were notching up diplomatic and defense cooperation to forge one of the strongest strategic partnerships in the post–Cold War era. The bonds of that relationship are now being tested in one of the most difficult moments as trust between the two sides unravels under the pressure of tariffs, oil politics, and a potential shift in global alignments.

“The U.S.-India relationship is in free fall. We’re in a situation in the U.S.-India relationship where the premises and assumptions of the last 25 years — that everybody worked very hard to build, including the president in his first term — have just come completely unraveled. The trust is gone,” Evan Feigenbaum, South Asia expert at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said bluntly.

In May, President Donald Trump announced tariffs on Indian imports after New Delhi refused to cut its purchases of Russian crude, despite its oil firm Lukoil trading at a discount. The 25 percent levy is set to rise to 50 percent on Aug. 27. The move, which seemed designed to force New Delhi to change course, has had the opposite effect. Not only has India remained on Russian oil, its leaders have been signaling a new priority in foreign policy: a tilt to the east.

National security adviser Ajit Doval visited Moscow last month, and Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar held high-level talks in the Russian capital this week. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi just wrapped up a visit to New Delhi, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is planning a visit to China later this year, his first in more than seven years. Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, is expected to host Modi in Moscow before the end of the year. Analysts say this lurch toward Moscow and Beijing is more than mere rhetoric.

In India, public opinion is souring against what many perceive as U.S. interference in sovereign decisions. “They’re signaling very clearly that they view that as interference in India’s foreign policy, and they are not going to put up with it,” Feigenbaum said.

India paused state-run refiners from buying Russian oil after the Ukraine invasion, but relented after the country’s oil company Lukoil offered a discount of six to seven percent. The rest, as they say, is history: Russian oil accounts for 35 percent of India’s crude imports now, up from 0.2 percent before the Ukraine war. Moscow is looking to deepen its offerings. On Tuesday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov told reporters that Moscow “will continue to supply to India, and also to other countries of the Asia-Pacific region, crude oil, oil products, thermal and coking coal. We see potential for the export of Russian LNG.”

It’s not just Trump’s tariffs, though. Michael Kugelman, a Washington-based South Asia analyst, pointed out that “Indians have had this newfound comfort of reconciling with China since the beginning of the year. And so, part of this is probably unrelated to the Trump administration. That being said, the Trump administration’s policies have made India want to move even more quickly.”

The deepening partnership with Russia on defense and energy may be partly designed for optics, a form of diplomatic theater, but some of it is much more durable. “India is going to double down on some aspects of its economic and defense relationship with Russia — and those parts are not performative,” Feigenbaum said.

India had already been weaning itself off Russian arms well before the Ukraine conflict began, diversifying its acquisitions to include U.S., French, and Israeli systems. But its energy trade with Moscow shot up the moment Russia invaded Ukraine. “In that context, this burgeoning energy trade is a validation for India that the U.S. can’t be trusted, whereas Russia can — because Russia is always going to be there for India no matter what,” Kugelman said.

For Modi, now is a chance to cultivate his image at home as a leader who stands up for Indian sovereignty, not to mention for his priority to protect the jobs of farmers, small businesses, and young workers. The message has major political benefits in India. Kugelman recalled that India had already made a host of compromises to the Americans before, including tariff reductions and forced repatriation of Indian workers from the U.S. “Because of those concessions, India needs to be careful about signaling further willingness to bend. This is one reason there was no trade deal — Modi put his foot down,” he said.

It’s not an easy pill for the White House to swallow, either. Peter Navarro, a former White House trade adviser, wrote in the Financial Times that India’s oil purchases were “opportunistic” and “deeply corrosive to an essential alliance.” The only remedy, Navarro wrote, was tariffs that could hit India “where it hurts — its access to U.S. markets — even as it seeks to cut off the financial lifeline it has extended to Russia’s war effort.”

Then, that gesture would have been a betrayal of trust against the United States. For decades, Washington had granted India access to American fuel and technology despite its being a non-signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, most recently in the 2008 U.S.-India civil nuclear deal. Both sides managed to compartmentalize their differences in that moment. They refused to let such sensitive points cloud cooperation.