Silence, Smiles, and the Price of Trust

By Sanjeev Oak

As Shashi Tharoor slams diaspora silence on U.S. frictions, Donald Trump’s Oval Office tilt to Pakistan raises bigger doubts. For India, every trade concession now risks being undermined by Washington’s old reflexes and new missteps.

Donald Trump’s sudden pivot to Pakistan has unsettled India just as trade talks with Washington edge forward. Combined with Shashi Tharoor’s critique of diaspora silence, the moment highlights a dangerous contradiction: can India trust U.S. partnership when old geopolitical reflexes still resurface?

Why Tharoor’s critique matters

When Shashi Tharoor recently lamented the diaspora’s “not one call” response to India’s setbacks in Washington, it was more than a quip. It was a reminder that the strongest voices overseas — business leaders, tech professionals, students — have often been the soft power that cushioned India–US turbulence.

Their current silence signals unease. Diaspora leaders are wary of speaking up just as trade talks, visa regimes, and digital governance are all in flux. But as Tharoor noted, silence itself has consequences: it blunts India’s leverage at precisely the moment the U.S. is pressing hard for market concessions.

“Silence is not neutrality. In diplomacy, silence is complicity.”

Trade at a crossroads

India’s economic stake in the U.S. is immense. Goods trade crossed $125 billion in 2023–24, while two-way trade including services neared $200 billion. The U.S. is India’s single largest export market. At the same time, Indian IT and services firms depend on the H-1B visa regime, which remains capped at 65,000 a year, far below demand.

Any disruption — whether tariff disputes, data localization fights, or political mistrust — directly hits Indian exporters and the diaspora professionals who keep these flows running. Which is why the diaspora silence Tharoor critiques and the Oval Office smiles with Pakistan must be read together: both alter the trade calculus.

The Oval Office shock

In September, Donald Trump hosted Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Army Chief Asim Munir in the Oval Office. The meeting lasted over an hour, behind closed doors, with only staged photographs released. Commentators called it “the biggest U.S. tilt to Pakistan since 1971.”

“It is not just who America courts — it is when it chooses to do so.”

For Delhi, the symbolism could not be clearer. At the very moment Washington is demanding Indian concessions on tariffs and regulatory access, it is also visibly cultivating a strategic rival long tied to cross-border instability.

What this means for India–US trade talks

Every trade negotiation runs on trust. Trump’s Oval Office outreach complicates that trust. If New Delhi opens markets further or softens digital sovereignty rules, will Washington treat this as partnership — or as leverage to balance Pakistan?

India has shown demand resilience: auto sales soared post-GST adjustments, e-commerce platforms recorded 40% higher festive traffic, and growth forecasts remain above 6.7%. This confidence strengthens New Delhi’s ability to negotiate. Concessions to Washington will now be weighed not just in economic terms, but against the political optics of the U.S. President smiling with Pakistan’s generals.

Tharoor’s warning in context

Tharoor’s diaspora dilemma fits here. If influential Indian-origin professionals in the U.S. remain silent, Washington will assume India’s domestic political class will swallow both trade pressure and geopolitical snubs. That is a dangerous assumption.

“If Washington’s friends cannot speak plainly, Delhi must.”

Beyond diaspora and deals: the larger picture

The U.S. risks replaying an old script. Instead of consolidating a high-growth partnership with India — a partner whose exports are diversifying global supply chains — it is flirting with Pakistan’s military establishment. This gamble once drained American credibility in the region. Its revival now, even as trade talks stall, threatens to do the same.

The road ahead

For India, the way forward lies in three moves:

• Trade diversification — deepening links with Europe and the Indo-Pacific to reduce reliance on U.S. demand.
• Domestic demand leverage — using India’s expanding consumption base as bargaining power.
• Sharper diaspora advocacy — ensuring that India’s voice is amplified, not muted, in American boardrooms and campuses.

Final word

Tharoor’s lament about silence and Trump’s Oval Office smiles with Pakistan are not two separate debates. They are one. Together they ask: can India trust Washington enough to trade away sovereignty, or must it accept that every deal will be hostage to old geopolitical reflexes? For Modi’s government, the message is simple — negotiate hard, diversify trade, and never mistake silence or smiles for strategy.