CHICAGO, Ill. — Influential U.S. Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi has warned that the India–U.S. relationship has entered what he described as a “cold and frigid” phase, cautioning that recent policy shifts risk weakening a partnership built steadily over the past three decades.
Speaking during his keynote address at the India Abroad Dialogue in Chicago, Krishnamoorthi said the current state of relations mirrored the winter conditions outside. “I think the weather outside matches the best description of the U.S.-India relationship that I can come up with right now — a little bit cold and frigid,” he said.
He stressed that the relationship should be strengthening rather than cooling, given India’s global standing. “It should be warm” and “continuing to rise in importance,” he said, adding that recent developments had moved ties “for the worse,” despite India being “one of the largest economies in the world” and “the largest democracy in the world.”
Krishnamoorthi said India’s importance to the United States extended well beyond trade. “It’s also an incredibly important partner and friend,” he said, citing shared commitments to “equality, freedom, democracy, minority rights, secularism, free enterprise, and making sure that everybody in the world tries to observe what I call the international rules of the road.”
He sharply criticized tariff policies pursued under the Trump administration, calling a proposed 50 percent tariff on Indian goods “arbitrary” and “capricious.” “A 50 per cent tariff on India doesn’t make any sense. It has no basis in any kind of logic,” he said. “It appears to be the product of a Truth Social tweet, and that’s not how trade policy should be done.”
The Congressman warned that imposing higher tariffs on India than on China was strategically counterproductive. “When we are trying to counterbalance the influence of the CCP in this world, why would we ever want to push away our friends, partners and allies like India?” he said.
He described China as posing a “triple threat — economic, military and technological,” accusing Beijing of stealing intellectual property, flooding global markets with subsidized goods, and weaponizing monopolies for political leverage. “That’s what they have done from steel to solar, to paper, to glass, to electric vehicles,” he said.
Krishnamoorthi also defended legal immigration, warning against political rhetoric seeking to curtail it. “Legal immigration has been the goose that lays the golden eggs for this country,” he said. “We would not have a Dr Bharat Barai here. We would not have my family and many of yours if we didn’t have a legal immigration system.”
Calling Indian Americans “the greatest export of India,” he said the nearly five-million-strong community plays a vital role as “bridge builders” between Washington and New Delhi.
He also warned that anti-Indian sentiment was rising in the United States. “Just a few weeks ago, an elected official from Florida called for me to be deported,” he said, describing such rhetoric as “deeply disturbing.”
The India–U.S. strategic partnership has expanded significantly since the early 2000s, spanning defense cooperation, technology and trade. Despite periodic political friction, both countries continue to view each other as central partners in balancing China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific.
The India Abroad Dialogue is part of a 10-city tour that began in Detroit and is being held in partnership with the Foundation of India and Indian Diaspora Studies, the U.S. Indian Community Foundation and other community organizations. (Source: IANS)
