Alaska summit: What does India stand to gain as Trump tries to be peacemaker?

Ever since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, India has been maintaining a largely neutral stance, as it abstained from most UN resolutions that condemned Russia's actions, while emphasising dialogue and diplomacy to solve the issue. India has also managed to maintain its relationship with Russia, despite the pressure from the West, even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a few times during the last few years.

Since the beginning of the conflict, New Delhi has significantly increased the import of oil from Russia, while also sending humanitarian aid to Ukraine, including medicines and medical equipment. 

India managed to carefully balance its decades-long ties with Russia and the growing partnership with Western countries and the US, even as many Western nations have expressed their dissatisfaction with India's pragmatic stance. While India was mindful of Western sanctions over its stance, it always defended its oil purchase from Russia, saying that this was driven by the requirement to secure the country's energy security. 

Currently, Russian oil accounts for more than a third of India's overall crude purchases. It barely accounted for less than 0.2 per cent of India's imports before the war.

The tariff blow

The Russia-Ukraine war did not really reach India's shores until US President Donald Trump decided to impose a punitive, 50 per cent tariff. 

According to  Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), the 50 per cent country-specific tariff on most Indian goods, on top of existing most favoured nation duties, has thrust India into a strategic dilemma that could reshape its trade, energy, and diplomatic positioning. "For New Delhi, the choices ahead are stark - negotiate, retaliate, diversify markets, or trade concessions such as ending purchases of Russian oil for tariff relief. Each option carries a different mix of gains and risks," GTRI Founder Ajay Srivastava said.

According to Srivastava,  India will require structural reforms and aggressive trade diplomacy to absorb the high tariffs and diversify the country's exports to Europe, ASEAN, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America.

'India had a role in Putin-Trump meeting'

The face-to-face meeting of Donald Trump with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska assumes significance for India as it would possibly determine the choice India may be forced to make. Trump has claimed that the tariffs imposed on India for purchasing oil from Russia have influenced Moscow's decision to seek a meeting with Washington, as the country was losing its second-largest customer.

Even as India said it has not halted oil purchases from Russia, Trump claimed that when he told India that "we're going to charge you, because you're dealing with Russia and oil purchases", it "essentially took them out of buying oil from Russia".

According to Trump, there was a 25 per cent chance that the summit would fail. However, he also suggested that if the meeting succeeds, he could bring Zelenskyy to Alaska for a subsequent, three-way meeting—a possibility that Russia hasn't agreed to.

How India will benefit from a peace deal?

If Trump manages to prove that he is indeed a master dealmaker and a global peacemaker after the meeting with Putin, it would ease the ongoing trade and tariff tensions between the US and India. While India dubbed the US sanctions as “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable” and even called out the “hypocrisy” of the West, which still has trade ties with India, a peace deal may prompt the US to roll back on sanctions, enabling India to continue the purchase of Russian oil.

Besides, the US has also threatened to increase the tariffs and possibly impose additional sanctions on India if the Trump-Putin talks do not yield desired results. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had earlier said, "Sanctions can go up, they can be loosened. They can have a definitive life. They can go on indefinitely. You know, there's this Russian shadow fleet of ships around the world that I think we could crack down on."

Even as India maintains that it will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security amid the punitive US tariffs, a peace deal would also give India the option to continue the neutral diplomatic balance it has been maintaining.