As 2026 begins, news of a free trade deal between India and the European Union appears to give Delhi some respite from the fact that strategically autonomous India, the self-styled Vishwaguru or global teacher, continues to face difficulties with two of its most important friends, the United States and Russia. Its criss-crossing relationships with Moscow, Washington and Beijing explain why.India faces conundrums with Russia, its largest arms supplier for more than half a century, and with America, the largest single buyer of its exports, one of its biggest investors. The US is also home to world’s largest Indian diaspora, whose remittances amount to 3% of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and enhance India’s global reputation. Those remittances are more than the 2.3 % of GDP that India spends on defence.The relationship between the US and India has strengthened over the last two decades. Presidents George Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden tended to perceive democratic India, making slow progress, as a counterpoise to China in Asia. Additionally, China, India’s main Asian rival, greatest territorial threat yet simultaneously one of its largest trading partners, has politically and economically significant ties with Russia and America.Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Russian arms sales to India have stalled. During the summit between president Vladimir Putin and prime minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi in December, Russia did not promise any dates for Russian arms deliveries, or a trade pact that would make up for the losses India has suffered because of President Donald Trump’s penalising tariffs on its exports to the American market.Russia’s war economy is severely strained but Moscow remains bent on subjugating Ukraine. This intention continues to affect Russia’s weapons deliveries to India. Whether Russia will supply two instalments of the S-400 Triumf missile, for which India placed an order eight years ago for use against China is uncertain.India should note that Russia cannot even meet its own military needs. China has supplied weapons to Russia, and is helping to produce drones on Russian soil. Moreover, a totalitarian, underdeveloped North Korea has provided more than 5 million artillery rounds to Russia. That could amount to 40% of Russia’s ammunition.India’s American conundrumSoon after Trump took over as president in January 2026, Modi spoke of the mutual respect and trust between them and equated the former’s belief in America first with his own belief in India first.Modi mistakenly held that the ‘beliefs’ of the lone superpower (GDP per capita $ 84,394) and a developing country (GDP per capita $ 2, 696) could make them equals. Trump’s framing of America’s ties with India in largely commercial terms has hit India hard. He wants India to buy more American energy and goods. His imposition of punishing tariffs on India for running a trade surplus and buying Russian crude have cost India dear. India fears that Trump’s economic coercion will extract concessions without delivering security against China in return.Trump, however, has not penalised China’s bigger purchases of Russian fuel because its dominance of global supply chains and Beijing’s sweeping new restrictions on exports of rare-earth, minerals, and magnet sectors would make such duties unsustainable for America.India’s problem is that it is an economic slowcoach. The gap between India’s $4 trillion economy and China’s $19 trillion one blocks it from becoming the counter to America’s arch-rival. China’s progress (GDP per capita $13,303.1) has empowered it to spend three times more than India on defence. India is unable to counter China economically and militarily even in its immediate Indian Ocean neighbourhood.Generally, high-sounding talk about American-Indian strategic convergence has given way to tough commercial bargaining, a reality that a weaker India must face with a realism that is stronger than indignation at what it perceives as America’s bullying.China, not India is Russia’s top strategic priorityEven before “Ukraine”, Russia had a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China. Unlike India, both countries share an interest in challenging global primacy of America and in strengthening military ties and geopolitical alignment.Compared to China, India has less to offer Russia. China is Russia’s largest trading partner. Twenty-five% of Russia’s imports come from China, and 1.5% from India. China buys 14% of Russia’s exports.However, Trump has not pushed India to China. Some in New Delhi have favoured more Chinese investment in India. But China is as transactional as Trump. Beijing will not allow India to become a manufacturing and exporting powerhouse at China’s expense. Additionally, unlike Russia and America, China has long opposed India’s permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council and the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Most troubling for India is China’s occupation of large swathes of its northern territory.For his part, Putin has underlined that India and China are Russia’s closest friends. Notably, both Washington and Moscow have called on India to settle its old border disputes with China and Pakistan bilaterally.Trump’s tariff war on India – together with his National Security (2025) and National Defense (2026) Strategies – makes clear that he does not perceive India as Asia’s counter to China.India must play its domestic and international cards with realistic strategic aims and skill if it is to achieve the power that will enable it to secure its interests better than it is presently doing against the unreliability of its Russian and American friends.All told, to New Delhi’s unease, Trump will continue to pay greater attention to China than India.Right now, India is left wondering which friend will come to its aid should it have to face the strategic crunch with China.Anita Inder Singh is a founding professor of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution in New Delhi. She has been a Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington D.C. and has taught international relations at the graduate level at Oxford and the LSE.This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.