France. New Zealand. The Seychelles. Malaysia. Slovakia. Italy.
Up to now yr, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India has zigzagged all over the world at a breathless tempo, pursuing new companions or bolstering ties with current ones, jolted into motion by a grim actuality: India’s solely approach to fight the worldwide turbulence unleashed by President Trump and fortify its financial system is to unfold its bets broadly.
Since August 2025, Mr. Modi has paid official visits to at the very least 20 nations, and is about to go to extra within the coming days, together with a visit to Uzbekistan that begins on Saturday. Many of those conferences have been businesslike, resembling the pressing, closed-door discussions of Wall Avenue bankers negotiating offers.
After Uzbekistan, Mr. Modi will go to Kyrgyzstan for the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Group, a 10-member regional safety group, the place he’s anticipated to take a seat down with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Among the many financial advantages for India that Mr. Modi has scored in his conferences are submarine know-how from Germany, scholar visas from France, and cheaper Scotch whisky — arguably India’s hottest alcoholic beverage — from the UK.
“We wish to construct higher ties with the remainder of the world as the dimensions of our financial system grows,” stated Priyam Gandhi-Mody, an govt director of the Future Financial Cooperation Council, an initiative of the federal government of Maharashtra, a western Indian state. She described India’s method as “plurilateral” — pursing “smaller objectives, extra focused objectives and a smaller set of nations, till the time that objective is achieved.”
Many so-called center powers — nations like France and Canada — have been kneecapped by the identical forces India faces, making them extra amenable to Mr. Modi’s overtures. Some are looking for him out to fulfill their very own strategic wants and to get entry to the world’s fastest-growing giant financial system.
India’s recalibrated method to overseas coverage made its debut a few yr in the past, following the 25 p.c international tariffs Mr. Trump introduced in February. The Trump administration started calling India out for its protectionist financial system, and final August Mr. Trump slapped India with a further 25 p.c tariff for getting Russian oil, saying the purchases have been serving to finance its battle in Ukraine.
Throughout Mr. Trump’s first time period, he and Mr. Modi cultivated a private relationship that India anticipated to yield dividends. However New Delhi’s temper soured after Mr. Trump claimed repeatedly that he performed a task in ending a four-day battle between India and Pakistan in Might 2025.
India has since rushed to seek out new companions to attenuate the financial hit, as the USA was its largest single export market, in addition to to strengthen relationships with nations like Japan and Australia that wish to include China within the Indo-Pacific area. The Iran battle has made India’s mission solely extra pressing: With 80 p.c of its crude oil imports coming via the Strait of Hormuz, it has been compelled to seek out different transport routes.
Who Is Modi Doing Offers With?
Since December, Mr. Modi, 75, has visited 18 nations, however India’s dance card has stuffed up, too: The leaders of 13 nations have visited India.
Many such conferences produced particular agreements:
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India and France have developed an particularly shut partnership, centered on synthetic intelligence and governance, and on doubling bilateral commerce inside the subsequent 5 years.
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Mr. Modi and Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, reaffirmed Norway’s dedication to creating a million jobs in India beneath an settlement India signed in October with the European Free Commerce Affiliation.
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President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea promised funding in India and shipbuilding help. India goals to develop into one of many world’s prime 5 shipbuilders by 2047.
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Mr. Modi grew to become the primary Indian prime minister to go to New Zealand in 4 many years. The assembly centered on maritime safety, constructing on a protection cooperation settlement signed final yr, and doubling bilateral commerce.
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India signed a significant free commerce settlement with the European Union, the world’s largest financial bloc, in January. Roughly 20 years of commerce negotiations had been sped up by the newly upended world order.
What’s Driving the Coverage?
India’s priorities might be grouped into thematic classes: protection know-how; regional safety; vitality imports; vital minerals; synthetic intelligence; and the power of its individuals to review and work overseas, primarily based on a assessment of its latest agreements.
Broadly, they mirror India and its companions’ objective of making well-functioning financial corridors inside which they will construct resilience to future geopolitical shocks, analysts stated. To take care of its “strategic autonomy” — a popular overseas coverage stance — Mr. Modi has pursued financial diplomacy.
Lots of the pacts underscore India’s want for help to create manufacturing jobs and know-how to drive its development, analysts stated. However India can be working with nations to construct infrastructure and discover new patrons for its prescription drugs, because the world’s largest maker of generic medicine. Not like the diffuse nature of many earlier conferences with leaders, the latest partnerships are much more centered, outlining particular objectives, targets and numbers.
The E.U. deal — which Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Fee, labeled the “mom of all offers” — marked a transfer away from India’s longstanding coverage of protectionism. As a part of the settlement, India agreed to make concessions, together with slashing tariffs on European automobiles and wine, amongst different merchandise. In 2025, India additionally struck a take care of the UK, the place the latter diminished tariffs on clothes, and the previous slashed duties on alcohol.
The India-U. S. relationship is in “flux” and lacks “strategic focus” for the time being, stated Chietigj Bajpayee, a South Asia knowledgeable at Chatham Home, a London-based assume tank. Mr. Bajpayee in contrast a latest assembly between Mr. Modi and Mr. Trump on the sidelines of the G7 summit in France to a “one-off espresso” quite than a relationship-building step.
With out a reliable relationship with the USA, he stated, “India is again to pursuing a method the place it balances and manages its relationships with each smaller nations, center powers like Canada and Japan, and the worldwide powers, U.S. and China.”
However Mr. Modi is hardly one to shrink back from promoting private chemistry the place he can, to the cheers of his fellow Indians. Throughout a gathering with Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, Mr. Modi introduced her with a bag of Melody toffee, a well-liked Indian sweet. That very day, shares of an unrelated firm with a reputation much like the sweet maker that produces Melody shot up on the Indian inventory market.
