relations

Nov. 4 (UPI) — Peru is severing diplomatic relations with Mexico over its granting of diplomatic asylum to a former prime minister accused of being involved in a coup attempt in 2022.

The Peruvian Foreign Ministry announced it was ending diplomatic relations with Mexico in a Monday evening communication, accusing the North American nation of “interfering in an inadmissible and systematic manner in Peru’s internal affairs.”

According to the communication, Mexico informed Peru that former Prime Minister Betssy Chavez Chino had sought refuge at its embassy in Lima and was granted political asylum.

Peru’s Foreign Ministry said it was “an unfriendly act that adds to the series of unacceptable interferences by the Mexican government toward Peru” and demonstrates its “profound lack of interest in maintaining a relationship” with Lima.

“Consequently, the government of the Republic of Peru has decided to break diplomatic relations with the United Mexican States,” it said.

Chavez was prime minister under President Pedro Castillo, who was impeached after trying to dissolve Congress and impose an emergency government to rule by decree in December 2022. He has been held in preventive detention since then on corruption and rebellion-related charges.

The former prime minister had been jailed from June 2023 over her alleged role in the coup until September, when she was released by a judge who ruled her right “not to suffer arbitrary detentions” had been violated.

Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said Peru’s decision to sever diplomatic relations was “excessive and disproportionate.”

In defense of granting Chavez asylum, Mexico said it did so in adherence to international law, in particular the 1954 Convention on Diplomatic Asylum, which both countries are party to.

“Mrs. Chavez Chino has mentioned that she has been the subject of repeated violations of her human rights as part of a political persecution of the Peruvian state since the moment of her capture in 2023,” the ministry said in a statement.

Mexico said its decision followed a “thorough evaluation and in strict compliance with the procedure established for this purpose in the Law on Refugees, Complementary Protection and Political Asylum” as well as in accordance with Mexican law.

“Mexico reaffirms, as has been recognized by the General Assembly of the United Nations, that the granting of asylum cannot be considered an unfriendly act by another state.”

The United States and China have declared a truce in the trade war launched by US President Donald Trump in April, argues Evan Medeiros, former US National Security Council director for China.

Medeiros tells host Steve Clemons that the deal reached between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump resolves the urgent trade issues between the two sides – tariff rates, soya beans and rare earth minerals – but China “remains committed to ensuring that Russia doesn’t lose” in Ukraine.

The US has more than 200,000 soldiers surrounding China, Medeiros adds, but Washington knows that “nobody wants to choose between the US and China.”

China and the United States have agreed to ease their trade war – for now.

There have been concessions from both, with some of the most painful measures put on hold for a year.

So, what tactics did each side use in the battle between the world’s two biggest economies? Will they work? And what’s the longer-term outlook: agreement, or more trouble ahead?

Presenter: Nick Clark

Guests:

Andy Mok – Senior Research Fellow at the Center for China and Globalization think tank in Beijing

Neil Thomas – Fellow on Chinese Politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis in Washington, DC

William Lee – Chief Economist at the Milken Institute in Los Angeles

The Israeli parliament has voted to annex the occupied West Bank – a move unlikely to become law but described as an “insult” by United States Vice President JD Vance.

President Donald Trump insists annexation won’t happen, but Israeli settler violence is escalating.

So are US-Israeli relations in upheaval?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Alon Pinkas – Former Israeli ambassador and Consul General in New York

Mark Pfeifle – Republican strategist and president of Off the Record Strategies

Gideon Levy – Columnist at Haaretz newspaper and author of “The Punishment of Gaza”

A ceasefire agreement for Gaza – and cautious hope among Palestinians for an end to two years of genocide.

US President Donald Trump announced the deal after putting pressure on Israel to agree.

What impact has the war had on Israeli-United States relations?

Presenter: Nick Clark

Guests:

Yossi Mekelberg – Senior consulting fellow at Chatham House

Rami Khouri – Distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut

Tahani Mustafa – Visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations

WASHINGTON — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will meet with President Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday at a time when one of the world’s most durable and amicable alliances has been fractured by Trump’s trade war and annexation threats.

Carney’s second visit to the White House comes ahead of a review next year of the free trade agreement, which is critical to Canada’s economy. More than 77% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S.

Trump’s talk of making Canada the 51st state and his tariffs have Canadians feeling an undeniable sense of betrayal. Relations with Canada’s southern neighbor and longtime ally haven’t been worse.

“We’ve had ups and downs, but this is the lowest point in relations that I can recall,” said Frank McKenna, a former Canadian ambassador to the United States and current deputy chairman of TD Bank.

“Canadians aren’t being instructed what to do. They are simply voting with their feet,” he said. “I talk every day to ordinary citizens who are changing their vacation plans, and I talk to large business owners who are moving reward trips away or executive business trips. There is an outright rebellion.”

There is fear in Canada over what will happen to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Carney is looking to get some relief on some sector-specific tariffs, but expectations are low.

“Improving relations with the White House ahead of the USMCA review is certainly an objective of the trip, but opposition parties and part of the Canadian public will criticize Prime Minister Carney if he doesn’t achieve some progress on the tariff front at this stage,” said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal.

Trump said Monday that he anticipated Carney wanted to use the meeting to discuss trade.

“I guess he’s going to ask about tariffs, because a lot of companies from Canada are moving into the United States,” Trump, a Republican, told reporters after signing an executive order related to Alaska. “He’s losing a lot of companies in Canada.”

Carney has said the USMCA, which is up for review in 2026, is an advantage for Canada at a time when it is clear that the U.S. is charging for access to its market. Carney has said the commitment of the U.S. to the core of USMCA means that more than 85% of Canada-U.S. trade continues to be free of tariffs. He said the U.S. average tariff rate on Canadian goods is 5.6% and remains the lowest among all its trading partners.

But Trump has some sector-specific tariffs on Canada, known as Section 232 tariffs, that are having an impact. There are 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, for example.

McKenna said he is hearing Canada might get some relief in steel and aluminum. “It could be 50% to 25% or agreeing on tariff-free quotas to allow the steel and aluminum to go through at last year’s levels,” he said.

The ties between the two countries are without parallel. About $2.5 billion (nearly $3.6 billion Canadian) worth of goods and services cross the border each day. Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states. There is close cooperation on defense, border security and law enforcement, and a vast overlap in culture, traditions and pastimes.

About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports are from Canada.

Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.

“The bigger prize would be getting a mutual agreement to negotiate as quickly as possible the free trade relationship,” McKenna said. “If the United States were to threaten us with the six months’ notice of termination, I think it would represent a deep chill all across North America.”

Gillies writes for the Associated Press.

NEW YORK — When a black teen-ager was killed in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn last summer after a run-in with a gang of whites, mayoral candidate David N. Dinkins made it clear what New York should expect from its top leader: “The tone and climate of the city does get set at City Hall.”

The perception that Dinkins could soothe racial tensions was probably the single biggest force behind his election as New York’s first black mayor. The last few weeks have brought a series of racial problems that have put the mayor under intense pressure to deliver on the expectations that he built.

“Though we cannot eliminate racial and ethnic friction overnight, we must take the first steps. Our beginning will, of course, be marked by small–sometimes indirect–steps. But even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” Dinkins said Monday.

But the mayor who exults in his city as a multi-ethnic “gorgeous mosaic” is feeling the cut of its sharp edges.

Each day seems to bring worse turmoil. Dinkins appears besieged, encircled by his detractors and undercut by the expectations that he himself raised. Some black leaders have gone so far as to publicly call him a traitor.

Dinkins faces two potentially explosive controversies in Brooklyn: As two juries have deliberated almost a week in the Bensonhurst slaying of Yusuf Hawkins, angry demonstrators have rallied each day outside the Brooklyn courthouse, and some of their leaders warn that violence is inevitable if the panels return anything less than a guilty verdict.

Meanwhile, blacks in Flatbush continue a four-month boycott of two Korean grocers that started with a dispute between one of the grocers and a black woman customer. While it is far from clear who was at fault in the original incident–the woman claims to have been beaten and the grocer contends that he merely pushed her to prevent her from shoplifting–it unmistakably tapped long-festering bitterness. Demonstrators have chanted such epithets as “Korean bloodsuckers” outside the stores, and have spat at customers who try to shop there.

A few blocks from the store, a group of more than a dozen blacks on Sunday beat three Vietnamese whom they apparently mistook for Korean.

Elsewhere in the city, smaller disputes add to the tension. A black City University professor is preaching black supremacy, while a white faculty member at the same school is saying that blacks are less intelligent and more prone to commit crime than whites. A group of white students at St. John’s University in Queens stands accused of raping a black woman. And Jimmy Breslin, one of the city’s most prominent columnists, has been suspended by New York Newsday after making racial comments about another staff member.

Dinkins’ low-key and cautious approach, which had initially seemed a soothing balm to the abrasion of former Mayor Edward I. Koch, now is being criticized as weakness and indecisiveness.

Roy Innis, national chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, said in an interview Monday: “We’ve got to have a commitment to telling the hard truth. David Dinkins is not strong enough to do it.”

Innis accused Dinkins of “reverse racism” for failing to denounce the grocery store boycott that is “reeking with raw and naked, palpable racism.” He attributed Dinkins’ reluctance to the mayor’s association with Sonny Carson, the self-proclaimed “anti-white” leader of the boycott, who worked for the Dinkins campaign before being dismissed for anti-Semitic remarks.

Other blacks, however, have accused Dinkins of pandering to whites, particularly after the mayor made a rare foray onto prime-time live television last Friday to appeal for tolerance. “We must repress our rage,” the mayor said.

“He is a lover of white people and the system. And last night, he bashed black people,” said C. Vernon Mason, a lawyer who has been involved in a number of racial cases. “He ain’t got no African left in him. He’s got too many yarmulkes on his head.”

Mason made his comments at a rally Saturday, where he called the mayor “a traitor,” and some people in a crowd of hundreds chanted, “Judas, Judas.”

Many of Dinkins’ critics seem to suggest that as a black, he should automatically hold sway over New York’s black community–a view that does not recognize the diversity of opinion and outlook among blacks in the city.

One source in Dinkins’ Administration noted that the mayor has alienated some factions, who say they are disappointed in the number of blacks he has appointed to key posts at City Hall. Others have not forgiven Dinkins’ denunciation of the Rev. Louis Farrakhan, the black Muslim leader who once described Judaism as a “gutter” religion.

Dinkins’ Friday night address won high marks from many quarters, however. Former Mayor John V. Lindsay described it as “superb.”

Nonetheless, any hopes that it might have turned the tide were dashed less than 36 hours later, when the three Vietnamese were beaten by the group of blacks who thought they were Korean. Police on Monday arrested two people in connection with the assault, which Police Commissioner Lee Brown said was not related to the boycott.

Dinkins and several state legislators Monday held a news conference to announce state legislation aimed at crimes committed by groups, and to make a new push for a bill to stiffen penalties for crimes that are motivated by bias.

Latest move underscores efforts to normalise ties and draw closer in wake of Trump’s policies, stiff tariffs.

India and China plan to resume direct flights this month between some of their cities after a five-year suspension as relations between the two countries begin to thaw, Indian authorities have announced.

The closer ties come in the face of the United States President Donald Trump administration’s aggressive trade policies.

Direct flights between the two countries were suspended during the COVID pandemic in 2020 and did not resume as Beijing and New Delhi engaged in prolonged border tensions.

On Thursday, India’s embassy to China said in a post on social media platform WeChat that flights between designated cities will resume by late October, subject to commercial carriers’ decisions.

The resumption is part of the Indian government’s “approach towards gradual normalization of relations between India and China,” the embassy added.

India’s largest carrier IndiGo announced on Thursday that it would resume flights from Kolkata, India, to Guangzhou, China, from October 26.

The resumption comes after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited China for the first time in seven years to attend last month’s meeting of regional security bloc, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

There, Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed that India and China were development partners, not rivals, and discussed ways to strengthen trade ties amid global tariff uncertainty fuelled by Trump.

The US president raised the tariff rate on Indian imports to a stiff 50 percent last month, citing the nation’s continuing purchases of Russian oil. He also urged the European Union to slap 100 percent tariffs on China and India as part of his efforts to pressure Moscow to end its war in Ukraine.

Relations between China and India plummeted in 2020 after security forces clashed along a disputed border in the Himalayan mountains. Four Chinese soldiers and 20 Indian soldiers were killed in the worst violence in decades, freezing high-level political engagements.

United States President Donald Trump has spent the better part of this week touting a TikTok “deal” with China, but experts say it is far from finalised after both sides shared details of his phone call with President Xi Jinping.

The two leaders spoke by phone on Friday, their first call in three months, but there was no announcement of the sale of the popular social media app that has 170 million US users.

While Trump, in a post after the call on Truth Social, said “It was a very good call … appreciate the TikTok approval”, the version from Beijing was not as clear.

“On TikTok, Xi said China’s position is clear: the Chinese government respects the will of firms and welcomes companies to conduct business negotiations on the basis of market rules to reach a solution consistent with Chinese laws and regulations while balancing interests,” according to the meeting summary in Xinhua, the Reuters news agency reported.

Experts were not surprised.

“Trump is the type of person who often announces frameworks or deals to have deals or a deal that still has a lot of details to be worked out, and this seems to be another example of that,” said Rachel Ziemba, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

The bigger trade deal is likely to wait till Trump and Xi meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum that starts on October 31 in Gyeongju in South Korea, “if that happens”, added Ziemba.

Despite the lack of any specific developments from Friday’s call, experts agree that the leaders talking is in itself a sign of a thaw, especially as Xi had previously refused to get on the phone with Trump, despite the multiple meetings in Geneva, London and most recently in Madrid.

“At least they have broken ice after a long while, and it seems like they are ready to negotiate other more difficult issues,” said Wei Liang, a professor at Middlebury Institute of International Studies, where she specialises in international trade and Chinese foreign economic policy, among other topics.

Some scholars, she said, had likened the last few months as worse than the peak of the Cold War between the US and the former Soviet Union, where leaders of the two countries at least had a hotline in place.

The call was days after Trump extended, for the fourth time, a deadline for China’s ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok or face a ban in the US under a law passed last year with overwhelming bipartisan support and one that was later upheld by the Supreme Court.

“It will be a very complicated transaction, if it happens,” said Robert Rogowsky, adjunct professor of trade and economic diplomacy at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, both because Beijing is reluctant to exit the app and because of the lack of clarity of future owners and rules around that.

“The value of TikTok is the algorithm which selects for us what we want to see, but in a way that is remarkably controlling,” said Rogowsky.

While the focus in debates on TikTok’s ownership has centred around data security, the real problem, instead, is its “ability to influence” viewers through the algorithm, said Rogowsky.

“Think about the power that would confer on the owners, the power of that incredibly sophisticated algorithm that drives people’s viewing, when that is under the control of a political party or groups [aligned with one], gives them tremendous power to influence.”

Middlebury’s Liang adds that it is unlikely that China would let go of the algorithm and expects “a graceful exit” that would allow both the US and China to get what they want from this deal.

China’s ‘stronger, bolder stand’

Any hammering out of a bigger trade deal on the multiple other issues, including US access to rare earth metals and China’s purchase of Russian oil and access to US semiconductor chips, will have to wait for the two leaders to meet, experts say.

“What is clear is that Trump himself is not in a space to impose new tariffs on China, and that is a reflection of the fact that the US government has mixed interests with respect to China, and the Chinese control some very important choke points,” said Ziemba, referring to China’s hold over critical minerals.

Rogowsky agrees that “China is taking a much stronger, bolder stand with regard to the US, partly because that’s the China way.”

But it is also likely that Beijing has some justification for that confidence, he said, referring to Beijing’s directive to businesses to avoid buying chips from US chip giant Nvidia.

“While US is trying to control what sort of chips go to China, they have declined to buy those, probably because they have the technology to design equally good or better and cheaper chips,” he said. Plus, with US dependence on Chinese rare earth metals, Beijing is “feeling strong enough to confront the US”.

From the Cuban Missile Crisis to the war in Ukraine, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union—and later post-Soviet Russia—have followed a dangerous pattern: miscalculation and misadventure followed by blowback. Both sides have pursued strategies and have plunged into involvements that backfired, damaged their own national interests, and destabilized international security. Unless this history is faced honestly, there is a risk that the two nuclear superpowers will continue repeating mistakes with unintended catastrophic consequences.

Early in the Cold War, American policy often failed to adjust to important shifts in Moscow. After Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, seasoned diplomats and analysts urged Washington to test whether the new Soviet leadership might pursue a less confrontational line. The father of U.S. containment policy, George F. Kennan, though no longer in government, warned against treating the Soviet Union as immutable and pointed to “evidence of flexibility, of experimentation, of responses to circumstance.” Charles E. Bohlen, who succeeded Kennan as U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1957, reported that the Kremlin’s new collective leadership appeared intent on consolidating power at home and sought a breathing spell from confrontation.

Scholars such as the influential Sovietologist Philip Edward Mosely argued that Khrushchev’s language of “peaceful coexistence” reflected more than mere propaganda. Within the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Harold Stassen, who served as the president’s special assistant for disarmament from 1955 to 1958, pressed for serious consideration of Soviet arms-control proposals. All of these voices were basically brushed aside by an increasingly hawkish and rigid national security establishment. The costs of that rigidity became clear in the confrontation that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was the most dangerous moment of the Cold War, demonstrating the dangers of poor judgment and misperception and the terrifying reality of deterrence through Mutual Assured Destruction. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev misjudged U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s resolve, believing he could install nuclear missiles in Cuba without provoking confrontation. In Washington, officials failed to appreciate how threatening their deployment of 15 intermediate-range Jupiter ballistic missiles in Turkey and 30 more in Italy as part of NATO strategy appeared to Moscow. Khrushchev’s move was in part a direct response to this strategic imbalance.

The crisis ended when Moscow agreed to withdraw its missiles from Cuba in return for a public pledge by the U.S. not to invade Cuba and a secret agreement to remove the Jupiter missiles from Turkey and Italy. What one side saw as deterrence, the other viewed as provocation—and the result was near catastrophe. Although Khrushchev won concessions, the perception of a humiliating retreat fatally weakened him, contributing to his removal from power in 1964.

In the U.S. the outcome was remembered mainly as a triumph. Kennedy’s public image as a tough leader capable of standing up to Soviet aggression was markedly enhanced following the earlier failed U.S. invasion of Cuba—the 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle—which had raised doubts about his leadership capabilities. But the deeper lesson—that both sides had stumbled into a confrontation that could have destroyed humanity—was only partly appreciated. The crisis led to the establishment of a teletype “hotline” between the White House and the Kremlin to prevent future miscommunications and to a series of arms control agreements. But Moscow embarked on a massive nuclear buildup over the next quarter-century. Moreover, Cuba’s security was strengthened, solidifying its position as a Soviet client state—just 90 miles from the U.S.—emboldened to eventually intervene militarily, overtly and covertly, in conflicts in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East.

Afghanistan, 9/11, and NATO’s Enlargement

Afghanistan was another defining episode. Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981, later acknowledged that U.S. aid to Afghan rebels secretly began months before the Soviet invasion in 1979, with the deliberate aim of luring Moscow into a costly conflict. When Soviet troops entered Afghanistan in December of that year, the effort escalated dramatically. Billions in U.S. and Saudi funds flowed through Pakistan’s intelligence services to arm the mujahideen, and the introduction of Stinger missiles shifted the balance of the war. President Ronald Reagan expanded it into the largest-ever U.S. covert operation.

The conflict became what Mikhail Gorbachev called a “bleeding wound,” hastening the Soviet Union’s collapse. But the blowback was horrific. Afghanistan became a crucible of jihadist radicalization, producing the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and ultimately drawing the U.S. into two decades of war following the terrorist group’s September 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. homeland.

The Cold War’s end was expected to usher in a new era of peace and stability. Instead, decisions taken in the 1990s and 2000s deepened mistrust. As former Warsaw Pact states sought NATO membership, Washington viewed enlargement as stabilizing. Russian leaders, however, saw it as betrayal, claiming they had been given assurances during German reunification that NATO would not move eastward.

Boris Yeltsin protested, Vladimir Putin internalized the grievance, and resentment hardened. Washington assumed Russia was too weak to resist. But enlargement, intended to consolidate peace, became a seed of future confrontation.

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was the most consequential blunder of the post–Cold War era. Putin underestimated Ukraine’s resilience and misjudged the resolve of the Western alliance. Far from fracturing, NATO was revitalized. Ukraine’s identity was strengthened, and severe Western sanctions isolated Russia from the West, making it heavily reliant on China for trade, technology, and diplomatic support.

The invasion also ended Europe’s longest tradition of neutrality. Finland joined NATO in 2023. Sweden, neutral since the Napoleonic era, followed in 2024–25. Instead of curbing NATO, Russia’s war of aggression produced NATO’s largest expansion in decades and transformed the Baltic Sea into what has frequently been called a “NATO lake” owing to control by the alliance of almost the entire Baltic coastline and key strategic islands.

Nearly eight years to the day before Russia’s invasion, Henry Kissinger had warned in a March 2014 op-ed article in the Washington Post that “Ukraine should not join NATO” and should instead become a neutral East-West bridge, while U.S. and European policy should avoid feeding Russia’s fears that its security or existence was under threat. That advice was ignored. Encouraged to believe it could partner with NATO and eventually be accepted as a member of the alliance, Ukraine became a flashpoint of confrontation and the stage for the largest and most devastating war in Europe since World War II.

In short, from the brinkmanship of the Cuban Missile Crisis to the proxy war in Afghanistan, from NATO expansion to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, actions born of misjudgment have resulted in outcomes neither side intended—with each insisting the other is solely to blame.

Russia’s authoritarian rule suppresses serious discussion and debate. But in the U.S. and allied nations, the aversion to meaningful discourse is harder to excuse. Democracies owe their citizens an honest accounting of past errors to learn from them, not to justify or excuse Moscow’s behavior.

If policymakers keep turning from history, the dangerous dynamic of blunder and blowback will continue—with risks no generation should be asked to bear.

The once rock-solid relationship between Washington and Seoul is being rocked by the detention of South Korean workers in a United States immigration swoop.

The controversy is the latest jolt in the alliance. There has been turbulence over tariffs and military spending as well.

Is the raid a one-off, or a sign of deeper trouble between the two nations?

Presenter:

Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Se-Woong Koo – founder of Korea Expose, an online magazine based in Seoul, specialising in Korean news

Jenny Town – senior fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC, and director of its Korea programme and 38 North

Youngshik Bong – visiting professor at Yonsei University, Seoul

On August 31, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was in Tianjin, China, to attend the 25^th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Türkiye has begun to regularly attend SCO summits in recent years. President Erdoğan attended the Samarkand summit in 2022 for the first time as president. He then continued the tradition by attending the Astana summit in 2022 and the Tianjin summit this year. With Erdoğan’s participation in the SCO summit, the Turkish media’s coverage of the summit also increased. Especially when browsing news channels, I see that with Erdoğan’s arrival in Tianjin, various news stories and commentators are evaluating the importance of the SCO and the summit. However, as always, Turkish TV channels and news outlets continue to compare the SCO with the EU and NATO while covering SCO news. Comparing the SCO and the EU is like comparing apples and oranges; they are functionally different structures, yet this comparison comes up every year. On the other hand, while some TV commentators point out that there is no complete unity within the SCO and BRICS and that there are internal contradictions, they generally do not mention the rift within NATO. However, even their statement that Türkiye’s participation in the SCO summit is not a sign that it will break away from the West clearly shows how much of a dissenting voice Türkiye is within NATO. Furthermore, there is no mention of the rift between Trump and the EU within NATO following Donald Trump’s election as US President.

Erdoğan attended the SCO summit with a large delegation consisting of Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, National Intelligence Chief İbrahim Kalın, National Defense Minister Yaşar Güler, Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek, Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar, Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacır, and Trade Minister Ömer Bolat, and held comprehensive bilateral talks at the summit. Throughout the summit, Erdoğan met with the heads of state of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and China for bilateral talks. In general, Türkiye has deep cooperation with SCO countries in the fields of energy, trade, tourism, and investment. In particular, Türkiye has a large trade volume with Russia and China. For instance, during his bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Erdoğan emphasized Türkiye’s cooperation with Russia in the fields of trade and energy and invited Putin to Türkiye, demonstrating the strength of bilateral relations. At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin also emphasized bilateral cooperation and thanked Erdoğan for his mediation and efforts towards peace regarding the Russia-Ukraine War. It should not be forgotten that Türkiye has not strained its relations with Russia since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine War, taking a different stance from NATO.

In his article titled “A Shared Path to Peace and Justice” published in the People’s Daily prior to his trip to China, Erdoğan emphasized that Türkiye was pursuing peace diplomacy on the Russia-Ukraine and Gaza issues and that China was playing a leading role in establishing a just world. The emphasis on a just world in Erdoğan’s article is always part of the multipolar world discourse. For many years, Erdoğan has used the expectation of a multipolar world order and the emphasis on “a just world” as his own unique discourse, saying that “the world is bigger than five.” While highlighting the same issues in both his speech at the SCO summit and his meeting with Xi Jinping, Erdoğan did not fail to emphasize Türkiye’s geostrategic position as an energy and transportation hub in the Middle Corridor.

Deepening Turkish-Chinese Relations in Recent Years

Erdoğan’s trip to China for the SCO Summit carries significance within the context of deepening Turkish-Chinese relations in recent years. With this visit, Erdoğan visited China for the first time in six years. Erdoğan last made an official visit to Beijing in 2019. The two heads of state last met in July 2024 at the SCO summit in Astana. Since Chinese President Xi Jinping last visited Türkiye in 2015 for the G20 Summit in Antalya, Türkiye has been hoping for Xi Jinping to make an official visit to Türkiye for many years. In fact, President Erdoğan indicated after the BRICS summit in Kazan that Xi Jinping would pay an official visit this year. Xi’s official visit to Türkiye may have positive repercussions for the bilateral relations that have developed in recent years.

There has also been a significant increase in visits to China by state officials and AKP strategists in recent years. Most recently, in June 2024, bilateral relations progressed positively with the visit of Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. After a long hiatus, Fidan became the first high-level official to visit Urumqi and Kashgar in Xinjiang. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and conveyed the messages that “Türkiye fully supports China’s territorial integrity” and “Urumqi and Kashgar are Turkish Islamic cities. They are a bridge between China and the Islamic world. The unity of the people is our wealth.” During his visit to China, Fidan also expressed Türkiye’s desire to join BRICS, and President Erdoğan emphasized his wish to attend the BRICS summit in Kazan. In our meetings with various diplomats and businesspeople following Fidan’s visit to China, they emphasized that China had a positive impact on Turkish businesspeople. Direct flights between Urumqi and Istanbul even began after Fidan’s visit to Xinjiang. Then, in June 2024, he visited the capital Beijing with AKP Deputy Chairman Efkan Ala and a delegation, and a “Memorandum of Understanding on Strategic Cooperation” was signed between the AKP and the CPC. In November 2024, Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek visited Beijing. In February 2025, a delegation led by Deputy Minister of Trade Mahmut Gürcan visited Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, and a Turkish Pavilion was opened in the Urumqi Free Trade Zone. On the other hand, it should be noted that Türkiye’s former Ambassador to Beijing, İsmail Hakkı Pekin, played a positive role in the development of Turkish-Chinese relations and was well-liked by the Chinese. For instance, Ambassador İsmail Hakkı Musa stated in an interview with Global Times that “Türkiye does not subscribe to anti-China rhetoric and hopes to enhance economic cooperation with China.”

Conclusion

All countries that are members and dialogue partners of the SCO are in favor of establishing a more just and multipolar world. In this regard, they follow a political line consistent with Türkiye’s interests and Erdoğan’s rhetoric of a fair world. Many countries, such as Russia, China, Iran, and India, are subject to Western and US tariffs. In this regard, the establishment of a more just financial system is the most significant demand. Although there are contradictions among the member states of the organization, they find common ground on the establishment of a more just order and financial system despite their differences. In particular, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s message in his speech that we should seek common ground while putting aside differences. In this case, it shows that they have put their differences aside and found common ground in multipolarity. On the other hand, countries such as China and India are both global production centers and energy and mineral-rich countries like Russia, Iran, and Kazakhstan, and Türkiye has deep relations with these countries. However, Türkiye’s predicament between BRICS and the SCO on one side and the EU and NATO on the other should not be left to Türkiye’s special position, historical alliance tradition, and the AKP’s indecisiveness in foreign policy. Türkiye should adopt a strategy of gaining effective positions in the SCO and BRICS institutions by leveraging its deepening relations with Russia and China in recent years and ensuring a solid position in the emerging multipolar world.

Iran and Pakistan have long occupied an uneasy space in one another’s strategic calculus, linked by geography yet divided by history, ideology, and external alliances. Their nearly 1,000-kilometer frontier winds through Balochistan — one of South and West Asia’s most volatile regions — and has often served as both bridge and barrier. What cooperation exists has usually been transactional, rooted in necessity rather than affinity.

Yet, the events of 2024–2025 have brought this already complex relationship to a sharper inflection point. Iran is grappling with the aftermath of its unprecedented direct exchange of strikes with Israel and enduring economic sanctions that limit its options. Pakistan is struggling with economic volatility, renewed clashes with India, and delicate dealings with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Both states face mounting environmental stress, especially water scarcity, and the complex economic and security consequences of informal cross-border trade.

Amid this turbulence, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s recent visit to Islamabad and the signing of multiple cooperation agreements signaled more than symbolic diplomacy. These moves suggested recognition on both sides that episodic crises, if left unmanaged, could harden into lasting hostility. To grasp why this moment matters, it is necessary to examine four interrelated dimensions: security and border governance, environmental and water stress, economic engagement and informal trade, and the web of external powers influencing bilateral choices.

Borders and Security: From Containment to Confrontation

The Iran-Pakistan frontier runs through some of the most sparsely populated and politically marginalized areas of both countries. The Baloch population, divided by colonial-era borders, shares cultural and linguistic ties but also longstanding grievances against central governments that they view as exploitative or indifferent. Both Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province and Pakistan’s Balochistan province rank among their respective countries’ poorest regions, with high unemployment, limited infrastructure, and limited state services.

For decades, these conditions have fueled insurgencies. Iran has grappled with Sunni militant groups such as Jaish al-Adl (formally Jundallah), which accuses Tehran of oppressing the Sunni Baloch population and has carried out attacks on Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) personnel. Pakistan has faced its own separatist insurgents, notably the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), whose attacks targeting pipelines, security forces, and infrastructure have intensified since the beginning of 2025. Both sides have accused the other of harboring militants.

For much of their history, Tehran and Islamabad managed these frictions quietly. Even during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) — when Pakistan tilted toward Iraq and maintained close security ties with the U.S. and Saudi Arabia — there was no open military confrontation. Both countries avoided supporting militant movements that could escalate tensions.

That restraint unraveled in January 2024, when Iran launched missile and drone strikes inside Pakistan following an attack in Rask that killed eleven Iranian security officials. Pakistan responded in kind, marking the first open, tit-for-tat exchange of strikes in decades. Although diplomatic engagement quickly de-escalated tensions — ambassadors were reinstated and both sides pledged enhanced intelligence sharing and joint patrols — the episode signaled how fragile the old patterns of border management have become.

Militant violence has persisted, with the BLA carrying out coordinated assaults in August 2024 that left dozens dead, including civilians and security personnel. These attacks revealed the limitations of relying solely on reactive security cooperation. Over the past several years, Iran and Pakistan have accelerated construction of barriers along their border with each other and with Afghanistan, while establishing regulated border markets to formalize trade and reduce smuggling. But these efforts have faced pushback from local communities whose livelihoods depend on informal commerce, which they see as a survival strategy rather than criminality.

This dynamic highlights a deeper reality, namely that security measures alone cannot resolve conflicts rooted in economic exclusion and political marginalization. Without broader economic development and political inclusion, militancy and cross-border tensions will likely persist despite technical security fixes.

Water, Environment, and Shared Vulnerabilities

Beyond security, environmental stress has become an increasingly salient source of tension. While no major rivers flow directly along the Iran-Pakistan border, Iran’s eastern Sistan and Balochistan province depends heavily on flows from Afghanistan’s Helmand River. Under the 1973 Helmand River Treaty, Afghanistan is obligated to deliver 820 million cubic meters of water annually to Iran, yet in recent years Tehran has received far less, largely due to drought and upstream dam projects.

The consequences for Iran are severe, including drying wetlands, accelerating desertification, and collapsing agricultural output. These challenges are magnified by climate change, which has made droughts more frequent and severe. In May 2023, Iranian and Taliban border guards clashed after Tehran accused Kabul of deliberately restricting water flows, an incident that left several dead. Afghan officials blamed drought and technical issues, but Tehran viewed water as a strategic lever. Iranian Energy Minister Abbas Aliabadi has repeatedly declared securing water rights a top national priority.

For Pakistan, the Helmand crisis is instructive. Islamabad faces its own growing water stress, driven by population growth, climate variability, and its fraught relationship with India over the Indus River system. Iran’s plight shows how water disputes, once peripheral irritants, are becoming core geopolitical risks.

The environmental challenges of all three states — Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan — are increasingly interconnected: shifting weather patterns, groundwater depletion, and forced migration link domestic environmental problems to regional stability. For Iran and Pakistan, these pressures create incentives to cooperate not only bilaterally but also trilaterally with Afghanistan on water-sharing, environmental management, and climate adaptation (Stratheia; Southwest News). Yet, political distrust — particularly toward the Taliban — and the absence of strong regional institutions make such cooperation difficult.

Economics and Informal Trade: Opportunity and Constraint

Iran-Pakistan economic ties present a puzzle: substantial potential, limited realized value, and a persistent reliance on informal channels. Official trade stood at roughly $3.1 billion in March 2024–March 2025, dominated by Iranian exports of electricity and petroleum products to Pakistan, which suffers chronic energy shortages. Pakistan mainly exports rice, textiles, and other agricultural products to Iran, but the scale remains small relative to both countries’ needs and capacities.

A major reason is U.S. sanctions on Iran, which have discouraged Pakistani banks and companies from deep engagement. Another reason is the geography of trade itself, as Balochistan’s cross-border commerce often bypasses formal routes, relying instead on smuggling networks. Subsidized Iranian diesel has historically supplied as much as 35% of Pakistan’s demand, particularly in border provinces. While this semi-formal trade provides income for local populations, it undermines Pakistan’s fiscal revenue and complicates energy market regulation.

Both governments have sought to formalize commerce. The creation of regulated border markets is intended to offer legal trade opportunities and reduce smuggling. Success, however, depends on infrastructure investment, customs efficiency, and local trust — all in short supply. Communities dependent on informal trade often view government efforts as threatening their livelihoods, resulting in resistance and occasional unrest.

The Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline illustrates the tension between ambition and constraint. Initially envisioned as a trilateral project with India, the pipeline was seen as a potential game-changer for regional energy connectivity. But U.S. sanctions and Islamabad’s fear of secondary sanctions have stalled progress for years. Iran completed its segment, while Pakistan repeatedly delayed its portion, citing financial and political risks. Last November, Tehran filed an international arbitration suit over delays in the project, seeking $18 billion in damages. That said, even if sanctions were lifted, Pakistan’s shifting energy mix — toward liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports and renewable energy — might dilute the pipeline’s strategic appeal.

Beyond energy, illicit flows add another destabilizing dimension. The Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan region sits at the heart of the “Golden Crescent,” historically a major hub for global opium production and trafficking. Despite the Taliban’s 2022 enforcement of a ban, which substantially reduced  poppy cultivation across the country, Afghan opium continues to flow, much of it transiting Balochistan en route to Iran and global markets. Iran, bearing the brunt of this traffic, has invested heavily in border fortifications and anti-narcotics operations, suffering thousands of casualties. Maritime trafficking routes, particularly through Pakistan’s Makran coast, have added additional challenges.

Although Iran and Pakistan suffer significant human, security, and political costs from trafficking-related violence and drug-fueled instability, they also benefit from the narcotics trade at multiple levels — from local economic gains and illicit financial flows to the involvement of state and paramilitary actors and the pursuit of geopolitical leverage. These criminal networks often overlap with insurgent financing and systemic corruption, generating hybrid security threats that neither country can manage in isolation.

External Powers and the Geopolitical Web

Layered on top of bilateral issues is the influence of external powers. China has become the most consequential external actor for both countries. For Pakistan, Beijing’s engagement in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has reshaped its infrastructure and energy landscape, making China Islamabad’s largest source of foreign direct investment and a key political partner. For Iran, oil purchases by Chinese “teapot” refineries have served as a crucial economic lifeline in recent years, despite U.S. sanctions, though the 25-year strategic cooperation agreement signed in 2021 (valued at up to $400 billion) has yet to be fully realized.

This creates overlapping opportunities: linking Iran’s Chabahar port with Pakistan’s Gwadar port and integrating infrastructure across both countries could create new trade corridors. Yet, these opportunities also tether both states more closely to Beijing, limiting their flexibility in dealing with other major powers.

The United States continues to shape the relationship, primarily through constraints. Washington’s sanctions have effectively frozen Iranian access to global markets and discouraged Pakistan from deepening energy ties, particularly through the pipeline. At the same time, Islamabad seeks to maintain a minimal working relationship with Washington, exemplified by high-level military contacts in 2025 — even as Pakistan strongly condemned U.S. strikes on Iranian facilities.

India adds another dimension. Historically warm Iran-India relations have been anchored in energy trade and New Delhi’s investment in the Chabahar port, which provides strategic access to Afghanistan and Central Asia while bypassing Pakistan. This has potentially complicates Pakistan’s strategic calculus, reducing its economic transit monopoly, challenging China-Pakistan infrastructure hegemony, and diminishing its political influence in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Russia has emerged as a selective but increasingly active partner of both Iran and Pakistan. For Iran, the partnership has gained momentum amid international isolation, with Moscow supplying military hardware, collaborating on drone technology, and helping to bypass Western. Russia’s interest in Eurasian connectivity — particularly through the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) — aligns with Tehran’s ambitions to become a regional transit hub. Meanwhile, Pakistan has cautiously sought to broaden its energy and trade ties with Russia. While the scope of Russia’s engagement remains limited by economic and geopolitical constraints, deepening ties with both countries reflect a shared interest in hedging against Western dominance and promoting multipolar alternatives in regional infrastructure and security.

Conclusion: Between Crisis and Cooperation

Iran and Pakistan’s relationship is defined by necessity yet constrained by mistrust, domestic vulnerabilities, and external rivalries. The challenges are structural: border insecurity rooted in marginalized communities, environmental stress amplified by climate change, economic ties distorted by sanctions and informal trade, and external powers pulling the two countries in competing directions.

Yet, there are opportunities to move beyond crisis management. A cooperative reset is conceivable if both governments commit to sustained border governance, revive energy projects in some form, and engage Afghanistan on shared water challenges. This would require not only technical cooperation but also political investment in addressing local grievances in Balochistan and Sistan-Baluchestan.

A second, more probable scenario is continued fragility, where cooperation remains transactional, focused on short-term crisis avoidance rather than long-term solutions. In this scenario, border incidents, environmental shocks, or disputes over smuggling would continue to disrupt relations, even as high-level dialogue keeps them from complete breakdown.

The most concerning possibility is regional shock disruption — a major external event, such as U.S.–Iran military escalation, Taliban water policies weaponized for leverage, or renewed India-Pakistan conflict, which could derail bilateral cooperation entirely.

These scenarios are influenced by factors beyond bilateral control: global energy transitions, shifting great-power competition, and accelerating climate stress. Whether Iran and Pakistan can move from reaction to strategy will depend on their ability to insulate pragmatic cooperation from these external shocks while addressing the domestic vulnerabilities that fuel conflict.

Ultimately, their shared frontier is more than a line on a map. It is a microcosm of South and West Asia’s wider dilemmas, where borders are at once barriers and bridges, and where resilience, rather than rhetoric, will determine the region’s future.

At the invitation of India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi paid an official visit to India on August 18th and 19th. The visit is being considered as a significant step for the restoration of Sino-Indian bilateral relations. On the first day of his visit, Wang Yi sat for a meeting with Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. In the meeting, Jaishankar stressed building a stable, cooperative, and forward-looking relationship between India and China, and differences between the two states must not turn into disputes. Then Wang Yi stressed that China and India should strengthen the momentum of improving bilateral relations, expand cooperation, and provide much-needed certainty and stability. The next day, Wang Yi met Ajit Doval to attend the 24th round of Border Talks. Both Doval and Wang emphasized maintaining peace and tranquility in the border areas for the well-being of the Sino-Indian bilateral relations. Before departure, Wang Yi called on the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and handed over the invitation from China’s president to India’s prime minister for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit being held in Tianjin, China.

For some years, due to some issues, including border tensions, there has been a kind of coldness in the bilateral relations between the two states. Especially after the Galwan border clash in 2020, the bilateral relations between the two states turned highly complicated. Then both states had deployed a large military presence close to the border. In addition, both states imposed several sanctions on one another, including cutting off direct flights, visa restrictions, banning social media apps, etc.

The situation started to change last year when India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping held a direct bilateral meeting at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia. This was the first direct meeting between the heads of the governments of the two states after the Galwan border clash. Since the meeting, both states have started withdrawing their troops from sensitive areas of the border. Some meetings have been held between officials from the foreign and security affairs of both states. Both parties have emphasized normalizing the relations between the two states and increasing cooperation. This was the first major move for the realignment of the Sino-Indian bilateral relations.

For the second major move, US President Donald Trump has played a big role. His reciprocal tariff policy has encouraged both India and China to come close. Trump imposed a 50% tariff on several key Indian products. On the other hand, China is also in discomfort with Trump’s trade policy, though negotiation with the US is still going on regarding tariff issues. It is creating pressure on the Chinese economy.

Despite the economy, Trump’s geopolitical strategy is also pushing India and China to walk in an aligned way. After the Pahelgam attack, India did not get expected support from the US. Rather, Pakistan has gotten an advantage from the US, including a lower tariff than India and a warm reception of Pakistan’s Army Chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, in Washington and Tampa back-to-back within two months after the Pahelgam attack. 

On the other hand, China has huge discomfort with the Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) of the US. Through the Quad alliance, the US is trying to create pressure on China’s supply chain in the Indo-Pacific region. China’s dispute with the US over Taiwan is on the way to growing. In addition, the growing US military presence in the South China Sea has become a major concern for China.

From there, it can be well understood that the US’s tariff policy and geopolitical strategy have become a common issue of discomfort for both India and China at this moment. As a result of all of these, the two immediate neighboring states have started to realize that partnership rather than rivalry between them can be useful for their mutual benefit.

As part of the partnership, both states have already started to take several initiatives. Both states have agreed to operate direct flights between them. Visa restriction is taking back from both sides. China has agreed to supply fertilizer and a Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) to India. Recently China has allowed resuming the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra for Indian pilgrims. India has agreed to open its market for Chinese investment. According to a Reuters report, China promises to address India’s rare earth mineral needs.

Last month Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaisankar visited China to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization foreign ministers’ summit. This was Jaisankar’s first China visit after the border clash.Now China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has made a visit to India. In the call with Wang Yi, Narendra Modi confirmed that he will visit China to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit at the end of August.High officials’ visits like these indicate the intention and effort to normalize relations from both sides.

While the apparent initiatives taken by the two states for the realignment of the bilateral relations should be considered in a positive way. But it must be kept in mind that there are several major and complex obstacles standing in the way of a complete stabilization of the relationship between the two states. For example, just as India is uneasy about China’s Dalai Lama and Pakistan policy, on the other hand, China is also uneasy about India’s expansion of regional influence and effective involvement in the Quad alliance. In addition, there is still no stable solution to the border problem. In this scenario, both states have to come forward with equal effort and willingness for their mutual benefit. 

A stable and cooperative Sino-Indian relationship has far-reaching benefits not only for both states but also beyond. Regional and global economic growth, security, and connectivity are deeply intertwined with the activities of these two states. Economically, China is the world’s second largest economy, and India is the fifth largest. In terms of military strength, China is the third and India is the fourth. Besides, both states are the most populous states in the world. Therefore, if these two states can resolve their differences through diplomatic means and move forward together in partnership, it will bring mutual prosperity not only to them but also to the regional and global scales. For this, realignment between the bilateral relations of the two states is highly required. Recent visits and several initiatives taken by the two states can be considered as significant moves of the realignment. And if the realignment takes place properly, then Dragon and Elephant can dance together.

Even as the United States slaps India with a 50 percent tariff, the highest among all countries so far and one that will push their relationship to its lowest moment in years, one thing is clear: US President Donald Trump is more interested in onshoring than friend-shoring, experts say.

On Wednesday, the US announced an additional 25 percent tariff on India over its import of Russian oil, taking the total to 50 percent. The move caught most experts by surprise as New Delhi was one of the first to start trade negotiations with Washington, DC, and Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have repeatedly admired each other in public statements and called each other friends. Brazil is the only other country facing tariffs as high as India’s.

“The breakdown of the trade negotiations was a surprise,” said Vina Nadjibulla, vice president of strategy and research at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

“This is a very difficult moment, arguably the worst in many, many years in their relationship and puts India in a very small group of countries that find themselves without a deal and with the highest tariff rates. They now need some pragmatic path forward and need to find a way to rebuild trust,” Nadjibulla said.

While the 50 percent tariffs, set to kick in in three weeks, have come as a shock, there has been a series of events in the past few weeks that hinted at disagreements between the two countries.

Just last week, Trump threatened that he would penalise New Delhi for buying Russian oil and arms, venting his frustration over an impasse in trade talks and referred to both countries as “dead economies”.

Negotiations deadlock

Last year, bilateral trade between India and the US stood at approximately $212bn, with a trade gap of about $46bn in India’s favour. Modi has said in the past that he plans to more than double trade between the two countries to $500bn in the next five years.

As part of the tariff negotiations, New Delhi had offered to remove levies from US industrial goods and said it would increase defence and energy purchases, the Reuters news agency reported. It also offered to scale back taxes on cars, despite a strong auto lobby at home pressuring it not to.

But it refused to remove duties from farm and dairy products, two politically sensitive sectors that employ hundreds of millions of predominantly poor Indians, and a stance similar to some other countries like Canada.

There are also geopolitical layers to what was supposed to be a trade conversation, pointed out Farwa Aamer, director of South Asia Initiatives at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York.

A very public one was the difference in perception on how the latest clash between India and archenemy Pakistan in May was brought to an end. Trump has repeatedly said that he mediated a ceasefire. India has repeatedly said that Trump had no role in bringing about a truce and has said that Modi and Trump never spoke during the conflict.

Pakistan, on the other hand, has said it will nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize and has so far walked away with deals with the US to explore its reserves of critical minerals and oil as its efforts to reset ties with the US play out after years of ambivalence under former US President Joe Biden, said Aamer.

All of this has caused unease for New Delhi, which is now trying to navigate a tough road. “This will test India’s foreign policy,” said Aamer, “and the question is if we will see it grow with the US even as it maintains its ties with Russia,” its longstanding defence and trade partner.

New Delhi has called Wednesday’s tariff “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable” and said its imports of Russian oil are based on its objective of securing the energy needs of its nation of 1.4 billion people.

But beyond that, “India doesn’t want to look weak”, said Aamer. “India has this global standing, and Modi has this global standing, so it has to hold its own. It will maintain its stance that its national security is driving its foreign policy.”

Robert Rogowsky, a professor of international trade at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, said he expected “very creative diplomacy” in the “near term” as India and the US try to reset ties despite tensions.

“Strong-arming individuals like Modi will inevitably lead to shifts and counter-shifts,” he told Al Jazeera.

Adding instability

For now, India can focus on strengthening its bilateral trade agreements, said Aamer, such as the one it signed with the United Kingdom last month and another with the European Union, which is currently in the works.

India is also trying to stabilise relations with China –  just as Australia, Canada and Japan have done in recent months since Trump took office and hit allies with tariffs. Modi is planning to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit at the end of the month. It would be his first visit to China since the two countries had a face-off in 2020 in the Galwan River valley.

But the trade blow from the US also comes at a time when India has been trying to position itself as a manufacturing hub and as an option for businesses that were looking to add locations outside China.

In April, Apple, for instance, said all iPhones meant to be sold in the US would be assembled in India by next year. While electronics are exempt for now from the tariffs, a country with a 50 percent tariff tag on it is hardly attractive for business, and this just “adds to the instability and uncertainty that businesses were already feeling” because of all the Trump tariffs, Nadjibulla said.

“Trump has made it clear that he’s interested in onshoring rather than friend-shoring.”

New Delhi, India — When Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, many Indian analysts celebrated, arguing that his bonhomie with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would shield the country from the chaos that the United States president could unleash.

The two leaders had effectively campaigned for each other previously, attending joint rallies. They have repeatedly described each other as friends, and in February, Modi became among the first world leaders to visit Trump in the White House.

But six months later, a sobering reality has hit New Delhi, with Trump punishing it with a 25 percent tariff on imports and near-daily threats to increase those levies further because of India’s oil purchases from Russia, as he tries to force Moscow into accepting a ceasefire in its war on Ukraine.

An India-US trade deal remains elusive, and bilateral relations are on a slippery slope, according to some experts. “US-India relations are at the lowest point in decades,” Biswajit Dhar, a trade economist who has worked on several Indian trade deals, told Al Jazeera. Dozens of other countries, including neighbours India has tense ties with, such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, are facing lower tariffs.

Addressing a public rally on Saturday, Modi took a defiant stance against Trump’s tariff assaults. “The world economy is going through many apprehensions. There is an atmosphere of instability,” Modi said.

“Now, whatever we buy, there should be only one scale: we will buy those things which have been made by the sweat of an Indian,” he added.

Modi’s comments come as Indian officials reportedly reject stopping the buying of Russian crude.

Trump has blamed India’s buying of Russian oil for helping finance Moscow’s war on Ukraine. “They [Indians] don’t care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine,”  Trump said Monday. “Because of this, I will be substantially raising the Tariff paid by India to the USA.”

So, how did we get here? What are the growing points of discord between India and the US? And could India give up on Russian oil to save its relationship with the US?

What are the friction points in US-India relations?

Modi and Trump might speak highly of each other, but there is a growing number of areas where India and the US are at odds, ranging from trade agreements to strategic alignment.

No trade deal

Trade has long been a sticking point in US-India relations, even as strategic and defence ties have deepened. The US has consistently pushed for greater market access, lower tariffs and stronger protections, especially for its tech, pharmaceutical and agricultural exports. India, on the other hand, has resisted what it sees as disproportionate pressure to open up its economy in ways that may harm its domestic industries and small farmers.

Yet, before Trump, the two countries managed this economic relationship, despite its imbalance: India sold twice as much to the US as the US sold to India. The US wanted access to India’s growing markets, and India needed to export to the US, so keeping ties afloat was important to both.

After Trump first announced tariffs on almost all trading partners on April 1, Indian and US officials began talks to stitch together a trade deal. But disagreements over e-commerce regulation, digital data flows and price controls on medical devices have reportedly stalled progress.

Indian officials were frantically chasing the August 1 deadline set by Trump to avoid tariffs. But despite occasional breakthroughs, like India cutting tariffs on some US goods, the two countries have not yet concluded a full bilateral trade deal.

With negotiations still under way, New Delhi now faces 25 percent tariffs on its exports to the US, and Trump has threatened unspecified additional penalties tied to India’s energy and arms purchases from Russia.

“This is a pressure tactic by Trump,” said Anil Trigunayat, a former Indian diplomat who has served as India’s trade commissioner in New York. “Unlike others, India has not given in to what the Americans want because we have to protect our MSMEs and agriculture,” he added, using the acronym for micro, small, and medium enterprises.

Almost half of India’s population depends on agriculture for its livelihood, making the issue politically sensitive for every Indian government.

“Everybody is playing hardball on both sides, and it’s necessary to arrive at a mutually beneficial solution,” he told Al Jazeera.

India’s close ties with Russia

As Trump’s frustrations with Russia mount over stalled peace talks to end the war in Ukraine, the US president has been looking for more ways to corner Moscow. India’s longstanding relationship with Russia has emerged as a key target for Washington.

While the US views India as a key partner in countering China’s rise in the Asia Pacific, it has grown increasingly uneasy with New Delhi’s continued defence and energy ties with Moscow, analysts say.

At a time when the West has shunned Russian President Vladimir Putin, who also faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court related to the war in Ukraine, Modi visited Russia twice last year. In July 2024, Putin conferred upon Modi the Order of St Andrew the Apostle the First‑Called, Russia’s highest civilian honour.

Russia remains one of India’s largest arms suppliers, and their cooperation spans critical technologies, including missile systems and nuclear reactors. And after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, India ramped up imports of discounted Russian crude oil.

Kashmir ceasefire

After an attack by gunmen in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam resort town on April 22, in which 26 civilians were killed, India and Pakistan engaged in their most expansive military conflict in decades.

As the South Asian nuclear-armed rivals traded missile and drone attacks in May, Trump said he intervened and told both countries to agree to a ceasefire, or there would be no trade.

“Fellas, come on. Let’s make a deal. Let’s do some trading. Let’s not trade nuclear missiles. Let’s trade the things that you make so beautifully,” Trump said a few days later in Riyadh.

“I used trade to a large extent to do [the ceasefire]. And it all stopped,” he added.

In India, which has long held the position that all disputes with Pakistan must be settled bilaterally, with no third-party mediation, Trump’s claim that he engineered the May 10 ceasefire that stopped the fighting has sparked criticism of Modi from the opposition.

Modi’s government has insisted that the truce was brought about bilaterally, that Modi did not speak to Trump during the conflict, and that – contrary to the US president’s claims – trade was never discussed as a factor in negotiating the ceasefire. But Trump has doubled down on his claim, mentioning more than 30 times that he brokered peace.

Growing US-Pakistan ties

After the ceasefire between India and Pakistan in May, Trump hosted Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, at the White House. Never before had a US president hosted a Pakistani military boss who was not also the head of state.

That meeting underscored a growing warmth between Washington and Islamabad after years of tense ties, with US military officials crediting Pakistan with helping them capture wanted “terrorists”.

The government of Pakistan also officially endorsed Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for “recognition of his decisive diplomatic intervention and pivotal leadership during the recent India-Pakistan crisis”.

A day after meeting Munir, Trump called Modi a “fantastic man”, but added that Munir was “extremely influential” in bringing about the ceasefire.

“I love Pakistan,” Trump said, and repeated: “I stopped the war between Pakistan and India.”

As Trump targeted India in his latest tariff assault, he took to his Truth Social platform to reveal that he had concluded a deal with Pakistan, in which they would work together on developing oil reserves. “Who knows, maybe they’ll be selling Oil to India some day!” he wrote.

Later, the US imposed a 19 percent tariff on imports from Pakistan, which Islamabad hailed as “balanced and forward-looking”.

Big Tech hiring, deportation

Days before Modi visited Trump in February, visuals emerged of Indian citizens in the US, shackled in chains, parading towards a US military aircraft, prompting anger in India over the treatment of its nationals.

Returnees, immigrants without documents to stay in the US, described being chained throughout the flight to India, unable to move for nearly 40 hours. Like trade, the issue of deportation has been at the centre of Trump’s re-election campaign.

And it is not just undocumented migrants.

After assuming the presidency, Trump’s administration has also come under pressure from the president’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) base to crack down on H1B work visas, nearly 72 percent of which go to Indians.

Last month, speaking at an artificial intelligence summit in Washington, DC, Trump singled out tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple for hiring workers from India. Trump declared, “The days of hiring workers in India are over”, and urged companies to prioritise jobs for Americans and disconnect from outsourcing models tied to India and China.

What’s the latest spark in US-India tensions?

Russia’s war on Ukraine has emerged as the latest trigger, as Trump tried to push Putin into accepting a ceasefire.

On Monday, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that “India is not only buying massive amounts of Russian Oil, they are then, for much of the Oil purchased, selling it on the Open Market for big profits”.

Earlier, Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff at the White House and one of the US president’s most influential aides, linked India’s buying of Russian crude to financing Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

“What [Trump] said very clearly is that it is not acceptable for India to continue financing this war by purchasing the oil from Russia,” said Miller.

“People will be shocked to learn that India is basically tied with China in purchasing Russian oil. That’s an astonishing fact,” Miller told Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures.

India imports nearly 2 million barrels of crude oil per day from Russia, making it the second-largest purchaser of Russian oil after China. Russia also tops the list of India’s arms suppliers.

How has India reacted to Trump?

On Monday, India’s Ministry of External Affairs responded sharply, calling the US’s targeting of New Delhi over the buying of Russian oil “unjustified and unreasonable”.

It accused the West of double standards, pointing out how Europe traded more with Russia in 2024 than India did, and how the US continues to import chemicals and fertilisers from Russia.

It also said that the US has “actively encouraged” it to buy Russian oil, so that global crude prices would stay under control while the West could reduce its dependence on Russian energy.

“India will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security,” the statement concluded.

Will India stop buying Russian oil to please Trump?

That is very unlikely, experts say.

India has historically — since independence from Britain in 1947 — cherished its strategic autonomy, including during the Cold War, when it stayed non-aligned. Since the end of the Cold War, it has deepened strategic and military ties with the US while maintaining its traditional friendship with Russia.

“Trump is trying to wean India off its strategic autonomy policy by going after its ties with Russia and membership in BRICS,” Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera, referring to the Trump’s threats of higher tariffs against members of the bloc that includes several leading nations of the Global South.

“But Delhi is not about to jettison this policy in the face of Trump’s pressure. On the contrary, I expect it to double down.”

Late on Tuesday, India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval landed in Moscow. Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar is expected to visit Russia later this month. And New Delhi has confirmed that Putin will be visiting India later this year, for the first time since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

In recent weeks, India has also indicated that it is open to reviving a trilateral grouping including Russia and China, the West’s two big rivals.

“Can the US or Europe give up their strategic autonomy?” asked Jayati Ghosh, economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “India has more people than both of them put together. It is absurd to even think that India can give up that,” she told Al Jazeera.

What does this mean for future of US-India relationship?

Echoing Dhar, the economist, Kugelman said that US-India relations have “sunk to their lowest level during the last two decades of strategic partnership”, which began taking shape in the early years of the 21st century.

Non-alignment with foreign governments “remains a critical component of India’s foreign policy”, said Kugelman, adding that he expects that to continue.

And because “India maintained this balance after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Trump is penalising [New Delhi] for trying to maintain the balance [between US and Russia],” he said. “[That’s] something that the Biden administration never did,” he added, referring to the previous administration of US President Joe Biden.

Trigunayat, the former diplomat, said that “strategic autonomy for India is more important now than ever. India, with the world’s largest population, has its own approach to strategic autonomy that’s in the DNA of Indian foreign policy.”

In the longer run, Kugelman said that New Delhi will hope that Trump’s ire will eventually blow over – a likely case if Russia agrees to stop fighting in Ukraine.

“In that sense, India may look to redouble efforts to press Putin to end the war,” said Kugelman, “because for now, Trump appears to be taking out his frustration with Putin on India”.

SAO PAULO — President Trump has made clear who his new Latin America priority is: former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a personal and political ally.

In doing so, he has damaged one of the Western hemisphere’s most important and long-standing relationships, by levying 50% tariffs that begin to take effect Wednesday on the largest Latin America economy, sanctioning its main justice and bringing relations between the two countries to the lowest point in decades.

The White House has appeared to embrace a narrative pushed by Bolsonaro allies in the U.S., that the former Brazilian president’s prosecution for attempting to overturn his 2022 election loss is part of a “deliberate breakdown in the rule of law,” with the government engaging in “politically motivated intimidation” and committing “human rights abuses,” according to Trump’s statement announcing the tariffs.

The message was clear earlier, when Trump described Bolsonaro’s prosecution by Brazil’s Supreme Court as a “witch hunt” — using the same phrase he has employed for the numerous investigations he has faced since his first term. Bolsonaro faces charges of orchestrating a coup attempt to stay in power after losing the 2022 election to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. A conviction could come in the next few months.

The U.S. has a long history of meddling with the affairs of Latin American governments, but Trump’s latest moves are unprecedented, said Steven Levitsky, a political scientist at Harvard University.

“This is a personalistic government that is adopting policies according to Trump’s whims,” Levitsky said.

Bolsonaro’s sons, he noted, have close connections to Trump’s inner circle. The argument has been bolstered by parallels between Bolsonaro’s prosecution and the attempted prosecution of Trump for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, which ended when he won his second term last November.

“He’s been convinced Bolsonaro is a kindred spirit suffering a similar witch hunt,” Levitsky said.

Brazil’s institutions hold firm against political pressure

After Bolsonaro’s defeat in 2022, Trump and his supporters echoed his baseless election fraud claims, treating him as a conservative icon and hosting him at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser, recently told Brazil’s news website UOL that the U.S. would lift tariffs if Bolsonaro’s prosecution were dropped.

Meeting that demand, however, is impossible for several reasons.

Brazilian officials have consistently emphasized that the judiciary is independent. The executive branch, which manages foreign relations, has no control over Supreme Court justices, who in turn have stated they won’t yield to political pressure.

On Monday, the court ordered that Bolsonaro be placed under house arrest for violating court orders by spreading messages on social media through his sons’ accounts.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversees the case against Bolsonaro, was sanctioned under the U.S. Magnitsky Act, which is supposed to target serious human rights offenders. De Moraes has argued that defendants were granted full due process and said he would ignore the sanctions and continue his work.

“The ask for Lula was undoable,” said Bruna Santos of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, D.C., about dropping the charges against Bolsonaro. “In the long run, you are leaving a scar on the relationship between the two largest democracies in the hemisphere.”

Magnitsky sanctions ‘twist the law’

Three key factors explain the souring of U.S.-Brazil ties in recent months, said Oliver Stuenkel, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: growing alignment between the far-right in both countries; Brazil’s refusal to cave to tariff threats; and the country’s lack of lobbying in Washington.

Lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro’s third son, has been a central figure linking Brazil’s far-right with Trump’s MAGA movement.

He took a leave from Brazil’s Congress and moved to the U.S. in March, but he has long cultivated ties in Trump’s orbit. Eduardo openly called for Magnitsky sanctions against de Moraes and publicly thanked Trump after the 50% tariffs were announced in early July.

Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, author of the Magnitsky Act, which allows the U.S. to sanction individual foreign officials who violate human rights, called the administration’s actions “horrible.”

“They make things up to protect someone who says nice things about Donald Trump,” McGovern told The Associated Press.

Bolsonaro’s son helps connect far right in U.S. and Brazil

Eduardo Bolsonaro’s international campaign began immediately after his father’s 2022 loss. Just days after the elections, he met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

As investigations against Bolsonaro and his allies deepened, the Brazilian far right adopted a narrative of judicial persecution and censorship, an echo of Trump and his allies who have claimed the U.S. justice system was weaponized against him.

Brazil’s Supreme Court and Electoral Court are among the world’s strictest regulators of online discourse: they can order social media takedowns and arrests for spreading misinformation or other content it rules “anti-democratic.”

But until recently, few believed Eduardo’s efforts to punish Brazil’s justices would succeed.

That began to change last year when billionaire Elon Musk clashed with de Moraes over censorship on X and threatened to defy court orders by pulling its legal representative from Brazil. In response, de Moraes suspended the social media platform from operating in the country for a month and threatened operations of another Musk company, Starlink. In the end, Musk blinked.

Fábio de Sá e Silva, a professor of international and Brazilian studies at the University of Oklahoma, said Eduardo’s influence became evident in May 2024, when he and other right-wing allies secured a hearing before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“It revealed clear coordination between Bolsonaro supporters and sectors of the U.S. Republican Party,” he said. “It’s a strategy to pressure Brazilian democracy from the outside.”

A last-minute tariff push yields some wins

Brazil has a diplomatic tradition of maintaining a low-key presence in Washington, Stuenkel said. That vacuum created an opportunity for Eduardo Bolsonaro to promote a distorted narrative about Brazil among Republicans and those closest to Trump.

“Now Brazil is paying the price,” he said.

After Trump announced sweeping tariffs in April, Brazil began negotiations. President Lula and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin — Brazil’s lead trade negotiator — said they have held numerous meetings with U.S. trade officials since then.

Lula and Trump have never spoken, and the Brazilian president has repeatedly said Washington ignored Brazil’s efforts to negotiate ahead of the tariffs’ implementation.

Privately, diplomats say they felt the decisions were made inside the White House, within Trump’s inner circle — a group they had no access to.

A delegation of Brazilian senators traveled to Washington in the final week of July in a last-ditch effort to defuse tensions. The group, led by Senator Nelsinho Trad, met with business leaders with ties to Brazil and nine U.S. senators — only one of them Republican, Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

“We found views on Brazil were ideologically charged,” Trad told The AP. “But we made an effort to present economic arguments.”

While the delegation was in Washington, Trump signed the order imposing the 50% tariff. But there was relief: not all Brazilian imports would be hit. Exemptions included civil aircraft and parts, aluminum, tin, wood pulp, energy products and fertilizers.

Trad believes Brazil’s outreach may have helped soften the final terms.

“I think the path has to remain one of dialogue and reason so we can make progress on other fronts,” he said.

Pessoa and Riccardi write for the Associated Press. AP writer Mauricio Savarese in Sao Paulo contributed to this report.

The United States has imposed a punitive 25 percent tariff on India.

US President Donald Trump warns that more could follow.

It’s a spectacular change from six months ago, when the leaders of the two nations declared their friendship at the White House.

So what went wrong – and what will happen next?

Presenter: Dareen Abughaida

Guests:

Brahma Chellaney – Professor of Strategic Studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi and a former adviser to India’s National Security Council

Elizabeth Threlkeld – Senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Stimson Center

Sumantra Bose – Political scientist and professor of International and Comparative Politics at Krea University in India

Remarks by Chinese embassy spokesperson in New Delhi come ahead of Indian foreign minister’s visit to China – the first since 2020 clashes.

The succession of the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is a “thorn” in China-India relations, says the Chinese embassy in New Delhi.

The remarks on Sunday came ahead of the first visit by India’s foreign minister to China since the deadly border clashes between the South Asian powers in 2020.

“In reality, [the] Xizang-related issue is a thorn in China-India relations and has become a burden for India,” Yu Jing, a Chinese embassy spokesperson, posted on X, referring to “Xizang”, the Chinese name for Tibet.

Ahead of celebrations this month for his 90th birthday that were attended by senior Indian ministers, the Dalai Lama angered China again by saying it had no role in his succession.

Tibetans believe the soul of any senior Buddhist monk is reincarnated after his death, but China says the succession will also have to be approved by its leaders.

The Dalai Lama has been living in exile in India since 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet.

Indian foreign relations experts say his presence gives New Delhi leverage against China. India is also home to about 70,000 Tibetans and a Tibetan government-in-exile.

In her post, spokesperson Yu, without naming anyone, said some people from strategic and academic communities in India had made “improper remarks” on the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama.

“As professionals in foreign affairs, they should be fully cognizant of the sensitivity of issues related to Xizang,” Yu said. “The reincarnation and succession of the Dalai Lama is inherently an internal affair of China.”

🔹It has been noted some people from strategic and academic communities, including former officials, have made some improper remarks on the reincarnation of Dalai Lama, contrary to Indian government’s public stance.
🔹As professionals in foreign affairs, they should be fully… pic.twitter.com/HlG2IdvW1P

— Yu Jing (@ChinaSpox_India) July 13, 2025

Indian Parliamentary and Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, who sat next to the Dalai Lama during his 90th birthday festivities a week ago, has said that as a practising Buddhist, he believes only the spiritual leader and his office have the authority to decide on his reincarnation.

India’s Foreign Ministry said on July 4, two days before the Dalai Lama’s birthday, that New Delhi does not take any position or speak on matters concerning beliefs and practices of faith and religion.

India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will be attending a regional security meeting under the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Tianjin in northern China on July 15 and hold bilateral meetings on the sidelines.

This will be one of the highest-level visits between India and China since their relations nosedived after a deadly border clash in 2020 that killed at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers.