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Washington and New Delhi have been trying to reset their rocky relationship following a series of tariffs that President Donald Trump imposed on Indian goods earlier this year. The U.S.-India relationship has been one of the success stories of the post–Cold War era. It was seen as a strategic partnership that both sides used to fend off China’s assertive behavior.

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

The dynamic between New Delhi and Washington began to sour when Trump placed tariffs on all Indian goods earlier this year in response to India continuing to purchase Russian crude oil in the wake of the war in Ukraine. The 25 percent tariff is slated to rise to 50 percent on August 27, but it hasn’t altered India’s buying patterns and appears to have pushed New Delhi further away from Washington and closer to Moscow and even Beijing.

Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval visited Moscow earlier this month, foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar held meetings there in the first week of August, and Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi wrapped up his visit to New Delhi earlier this week. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to travel to China for the first time in more than seven years, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has already extended an invitation for Modi to visit Moscow before the end of the year. The shift toward the east has analysts concerned that it’s more than just an exercise in posturing.

Indian public opinion has soured over what it perceives as the U.S. meddling in its sovereign affairs. “They’re signaling very clearly that they view that as interference in India’s foreign policy, and they are not going to put up with it,” Feigenbaum said.

State-owned refiners had initially balked at buying Russian oil early in the war due to fears of running afoul of sanctions, but discounts of six to seven percent have proved too good to pass up. As a result, Russian oil currently comprises 35 percent of India’s imports, up from 0.2 percent before the war in Ukraine. Russia, for its part, has responded by upping the ante: Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov said Moscow will continue its exports of crude oil, oil products, thermal coal, coking coal, and also sees “potential for the export of Russian LNG.”

In addition to the tariffs, Michael Kugelman, a South Asia analyst at the Washington-based Wilson Center, noted that India had already been making overtures toward China and Russia before this month.

“India wants to get past this latest flare-up and restore at least a semblance of normalcy with the U.S., but this is going to take time, and it may take a change of administration,” he said.

Trump’s tariffs are not the only factor driving India’s realignment, said Kugelman. “We’ve seen indications for almost a year of India wanting to ease tensions with China and strengthen relations, mainly for economic reasons. But the Trump administration’s policies have made India want to move even more quickly.”

While some of New Delhi’s outreach may be performative, others are more permanent. Feigenbaum said that “India is going to double down on some aspects of its economic and defense relationship with Russia — and those parts are not performative.”

Feigenbaum said the arms component of India’s relationship with Russia was “much less of a driver before the Ukraine war,” with New Delhi instead turning to American, French, and Israeli systems. It was only once Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began that the energy trade between New Delhi and Moscow increased. Kugelman said New Delhi’s deepening relationship with Russia is “validation of their view that the U.S. can’t be trusted, whereas Russia can — because Russia is always going to be there for India no matter what.”

Modi has sought to use the opportunity to bolster his image domestically as someone standing up for India’s sovereignty. He has sought to ensure the well-being of Indian farmers and the livelihoods of the nation’s small businesses and young workers, a politically potent message at home. Modi had already given on many fronts, like tariff reductions and forced repatriation of migrant workers, to appease Washington, Kugelman added. “Because of those concessions, India needs to be careful about signaling further willingness to bend. This is one reason there was no trade deal — Modi put his foot down.”

In the U.S., the frustration was boiling over. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro took to the pages of the Financial Times to call India’s purchase of Russian oil “opportunistic” and “deeply corrosive” to bilateral relations. In the op-ed, Navarro said the tariffs were necessary to hurt India “where it hurts — its access to U.S. markets — even as it seeks to cut off the financial lifeline it has extended to Russia’s war effort.”

India now wants its own space, and the barbs coming from Washington aren’t helping. The U.S. has viewed India as a linchpin in its Indo-Pacific strategy to counter China through democracies under the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations. While many of the areas of contention have to do with economics and oil, they have begun to bleed into defense and intelligence cooperation as well.

Feigenbaum noted the irony of the moment. “Then, India was leveraging its partnership to signal to then-foe China that it had options. Now they’re working with the Chinese to signal Washington rather than the other way around.”

India’s message to Washington is clear: it will look after its interests, even if it means cozying up to the U.S.’s rivals.