Washington strains partnership, New Delhi negotiates from strength

For a generation, the United States was the destination that ambitious Indians, especially students and working professionals, dreamed of. Indian-origin professionals came to lead its biggest technology firms and Indian-American households today report the highest median income of any origin group in the country. That goodwill has been tested over the past year. 

A sequence of decisions out of Washington, a USD 100,000 fee on new H-1B work visas, tariffs that briefly reached 50 per cent on Indian goods, unverified claims about successfully mediating an India-Pakistan crisis and warmer ties with a terror-sponsoring jihadist Pakistan has cooled public sentiment about the US in India. It has unsettled a partnership both sides once called natural. Even as India-US trade talks continue, New Delhi has not simply accepted the terms offered. It has widened its options and doubled down on building at home.