In a blistering indictment delivered at Wednesday’s House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing on South and Central Asia, Democratic Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove accused President Donald Trump of systematically sabotaging the United States’ most important 21st-century partnership by pursuing policies that can only be described as “cutting off our nose to spite our face,” warning that continued coercion risks permanently alienating India and driving New Delhi deeper into Moscow’s orbit.

Brandishing the now-iconic photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi laughing with Russian President Vladimir Putin inside a car, Kamlager-Dove declared the image “worth a thousand words,” asserting that every punitive tariff and visa restriction imposed by the Trump administration is visibly pushing a democratic strategic partner toward America’s primary geopolitical adversary, undermining decades of painstaking diplomatic investment in the Indo-Pacific.

She demanded immediate emergency measures to reverse the damage, stating that Congress and the incoming administration must “move with incredible urgency to mitigate the catastrophic harm” inflicted by a cascade of trade penalties, including the 50 percent tariffs slapped on most Indian goods in August 2025 and Trump’s fresh threat on Tuesday to impose new duties on Indian rice exports for allegedly “dumping” cheap basmati that hurts American farmers.

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The lawmaker’s warning came as a high-level US trade delegation concluded two days of tense negotiations in New Delhi on December 10-11 with virtually no breakthrough on market access, agricultural quotas, or tariff reductions, leaving bilateral trade—already strained by earlier sanctions linked to India’s Russian oil purchases—on the brink of open confrontation.

With Trump openly vowing during a White House agricultural aid announcement to “take care” of India’s rice exports, Kamlager-Dove concluded that unless Washington abandons its coercive playbook and returns to genuine partnership, the United States will bear full responsibility for losing its most consequential democratic ally in Asia at the precise moment when countering Chinese and Russian influence has never been more critical.

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