Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a call with Trump that RT accurately framed as coming on the tail end of their talks to finalize a trade deal amidst newfound US pressure on India to dump Russian oil. It also followed The Atlantic’s report wherein Trump’s Special Envoy to Belarus John Coale confirmed that he received approval for floating a deal to Putin whereby Russia would receive sanctions relief in exchange for releasing so-called “political prisoners” per the model that he pioneered with Lukashenko.
That same day, Lukashenko proposed that Belarus, Russia, and the US jointly build a fertilizer plant, which came a week after Trump announced that “The United States is working on a massive Deal with respect to the purchase of Potash from Belarus.” Given the likelihood of the US agreeing to at least partial sanctions relief for Russia, which would likely concern the resource industry that Putin earlier invited American companies to invest in, India would do well to explore joint investments with the US.
India’s large-scale import of discounted Russian oil is indirectly essential to its national security, yet it also doesn’t want to torpedo its nearly finalized trade deal with the US by defying Trump if he decides to threaten up to 100% tariffs as punishment for these purchases, ergo the wisdom in proposing joint investments in Russia’s resource in light of the likelihood that the US will soon do so on its own. What follows are five background briefings for informing readers of the logic behind this proposal:
* 13 May: “The Russian Far East Could Help The Quad Diversify From Critical Minerals Dependence On China”
* 16 June: “Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Outlined His Country’s Rare Earths Strategy”
* 12 September: “India’s Top Diplomat Signaled That It’ll Defy Any New US Pressure Over Its Russian Oil Purchases”
* 30 September: “Trump Is Planning To Replicate His Successful Belarusian Dealmaking With Russia”
* 30 September: “Lukashenko’s Trilateral Belarusian-Russian-US Fertilizer Plant Proposal Is A Genius Move”
To summarize for the convenience of casual readers, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov said during a summertime speech about his country’s rare earths strategy that “We have a close, strategic, cooperative relationship with China. And we buy their products. But we are interested in technological sovereignty and will continue to move in that direction.” The innuendo is that dependence on China in this sector is a vulnerability from which Russia seeks to extricate itself through more foreign investments.
They’ve yet to occur due to US sanctions, yet it’s in the US’ interests to reduce Russia’s dependence on China via investments in its resource deposits so as to then deprive China of them, thus also decelerating its systemic rival’s superpower trajectory. India shares the same interests, is Russia’s decades-long strategic partner, and requires these resources to turbocharge its Great Power trajectory that’s also in the US’ interests to facilitate. This logic constitutes the basis of joint investments in this industry.
India would therefore do well to propose its involvement in any potentially forthcoming US investments in Russia’s resource industry brought about through the quid pro quo that Coale will pitch to Putin. The optics of India and the US replacing China’s role in the Arctic LNG 2 project from which it withdrew in summer 2024 under US sanctions pressure, for example, would also be in Delhi and Washington’s interests. That could happen as soon as year’s end if Putin, Trump, and Modi have the political will.
