MUMBAI, India — Donald Trump’s tariffs are accelerating Britain’s dash to strengthen ties with India — even if that means putting trade before morals.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer spent this week leading the U.K.’s largest-ever trade delegation to India, flying with 125 business chiefs to Mumbai to sign investment-driving agreements. It marked an all-singing, all-dancing bid to boost Britain’s stagnant economy — and help both countries diversify away from the United States.

Dealing with New Delhi, however, isn’t straightforward.

Two major diplomatic differences loomed in the background of the mutual charm offensive between the former British colony and its one-time imperial ruler. 

First, and perhaps most significant, is India’s continued funding of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by buying of millions of barrels of oil from Moscow. Narendra Modi displayed his fondness for Vladimir Putin just as Starmer’s mission was preparing for lift off — writing a happy birthday message to his “friend,” and sending his best wishes for the Russian president’s “good health and long life.” That’s not a message Britain — a staunch supporter of Kyiv — would endorse.

But Starmer, the progressive leader of the center-left Labour Party, displayed only reticence when it came to public grilling on these hot-button topics — with the quest for new avenues of trade getting top billing in the realpolitik era of Trump 2.0.

As one high-ranking Downing Street official put it: “You don’t get to choose who your world leaders are.” They were, like others cited in this piece, granted anonymity to speak candidly to POLITICO during the delegation to Mumbai.

Stringing Britain along

India spent years stringing London along over a free trade deal coveted by a post-Brexit Britain.

First came Boris Johnson. Britain’s then-prime minister bullishly declared on a visit to India in April 2022 that the deal would be signed by the Indian festival of Diwali. It wasn’t.

Later came Rishi Sunak, particularly revered in India for becoming the first prime minister of Indian descent to lead the former colonial power. Despite that, he never held much hope for striking a deal with the notoriously-difficult negotiators, and was booted out of office without clinching an agreement.

Then came Trump’s return. When the U.S. president swiftly made good on his threats to hit nations, both friend and foe, with tariffs, it sent world powers scrambling for alternative markets. Just five months after Trump’s second inauguration, Modi dashed to Britain to ink a free trade agreement that the British government argued would mark a multi-billion pound export boost for the U.K.

Trump has only highlighted India’s need for new trading partners with his imposition of steep tariffs on New Delhi over Modi’s refusal to stop buying oil from Moscow. Journalists traveling with Starmer to India pressed the British PM on whether he’d tell Modi to divest. He dodged the question. 

At a press conference after spending the day with his Indian counterpart, Starmer answered two questions on the subject in only the most opaque terms. When the cameras stopped rolling, aides clarified that the pair had indeed discussed Russian oil.

It’s not the first time Starmer has played the global pragmatist, regardless of the moral matters at stake.

Starmer held a landmark meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping last year, and twice declined to condemn the jailing of dozens of pro-democracy figures in another former British colony, Hong Kong, under authoritarian laws imposed by Beijing. The U.K. “mustn’t lose … the opportunity for our economy,” Starmer said, opting not to publicly rebuke Beijing over what is an affront to many in Britain.

‘Hard to take’

U.K. trade policy expert David Henig noted that trading relations between the U.K. and India had gotten off to a far better start for Starmer than his predecessors. But, he said, there’s “a long way to go” to ensure this leads to better government and business relations because of the challenging rules and politics of the country.

“India’s relations with Putin are part of this picture and speak to a bigger issue — that it probably will never be an entirely reliable partner,” added the director at the European Centre for International Political Economy. For one, the Hindu nationalist is accused of overseeing democratic backsliding in India.

Indeed, the second point of U.K. contention with New Delhi is the case of Jagtar Singh Johal, a British Sikh activist who has been jailed for eight years in India without a full trial. A United Nations panel described his detention as arbitrary as far back as May 2022. His family and supporters were pushing Starmer to take action on his trip.

Starmer’s response to a question on whether he raised Johal’s ordeal was muted, with no public rebuke over the case. “Yes, we did raise proportionate cases,” he said. “We always raise them when we have the opportunity to do so.”

Johal’s campaigning brother Gurpreet was disappointed that Starmer “didn’t even mention his name.” He added: “That is hard to take.”

Grand welcome

Modi tried to court Trump but the pair have reportedly had a spectacular falling out in recent months.

That may in part explain why Starmer’s welcome to India was so grand. Thousands of flags lined the streets of Mumbai with his and Modi’s face on, welcoming the British leader to the city. That will have been quite the shock for the prime minister who, if he tried to pull off a similar stunt back in Britain, would risk riots, or at least large-scale vandalism.  

“My understanding is PM Modi said to the Maharishi government, please make sure that the prime minister understands how welcome he is in India,” said a second British official. “It is absolutely extraordinary,” they added. “I’m used to quite a level of welcome in Delhi for foreign leaders — I’ve never seen anything like this.”

There were announcements from British universities, a defense deal — and a Bollywood studio committed to producing three new films in Britain, potentially representing thousands more jobs. British film industry leaders acknowledged the need to diversify partnerships away from Hollywood has only been heightened by Trump’s threat to impose 100 percent tariffs on foreign-made films.

While in Mumbai, Starmer stayed in a palatial hotel overlooking the Gateway of India, built under the British Raj to commemorate the arrival of King George. After India won its independence struggle locals took to calling it the “Getaway from India,” because the last British troops fled from here in 1948. 

Now it could symbolize quite the opposite — and much like under the British Empire, trade could end trumping most other values.