Ro Khanna says Trump drove US-India ties to 30-year low

Washington,UPDATED: Jun 30, 2026 10:58 IST

The US-India relationship is at its lowest point in 30 years because of US President Donald Trump’s “utterly destructive policies”, Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna said on Monday. Speaking at the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum Leadership Summit in Washington, Khanna said Trump’s approach had damaged trust and hurt America’s standing globally.

Khanna said Trump’s policies towards Iran, Cuba and Greenland, along with his stand on immigration and student visas, had weakened ties with partners and driven away talent. He also claimed that during a recent visit to China, India’s ambassador there told him that “a generation of trust has been lost” because of Trump’s policies.

“Now, you know I’m not one to mince words. I sort of tell things as they are. The US-India relationship has been at its lowest point in the last 30 years,” Khanna said. He added, “Trump’s policies of getting into a war with Iran have been utterly destructive. It has been utterly destructive to the prices of gas in India. Talk to (External Affairs Minister S) Jaishankar if you don’t believe me.”

Referring to his China visit, Khanna said, “I was in China, and the Indian Ambassador there told me that a generation of trust has been lost by President Trump. If we don’t speak the truth about the damage this President has done...we are not living in reality.” He also criticised what he called a foreign policy driven by force. “Now you have an America that has forgotten that moral vision, that has a foreign policy of might makes right, threatening not just Iran, threatening Cuba, threatening to conquer Greenland, and we were having dinner as if everything is normal,” he said. “Who cares about the partnerships of this and that when this President is literally destroying America’s leadership in the entire world,” Khanna said.

Khanna also attacked Trump’s remarks and policies on immigration. “The demagoguery about immigrants, the demagoguery of this President and talking about the lack of immigrants coming into the United States. How can we sit here and not condemn his policies on what he has done with student visas, with the demonisation of talent coming to the United States,” he said. On artificial intelligence, Khanna said Trump talks about the US leading in the field, but does not understand the need to attract talent. “38 per cent of the top AI researchers are of Chinese origin. 72 per cent have foreign degrees. This is a President who doesn’t understand that we need to be recruiting talent, not turning talent away,” he said.

Khanna described Trump as a “lame duck” and said the Democrats would win the coming mid-term elections and the 2028 presidential election decisively. His remarks at the summit centred on his claim that Trump’s foreign and domestic policies had pushed the US-India relationship to its lowest point in three decades and hurt America’s credibility.

With PTI Inputs

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