By now, we should all be clear: Donald Trump is no friend of India. Not in action, anyway.
Sure, he calls Prime Minister Modi on his birthday. He throws in phrases like “my friend” and “great leader.” But right behind those niceties are moves that undercut India’s economy, sabotage its workforce, and expose the hollowness of Modi’s international diplomacy.
The latest blow? A jaw-dropping hike in H1B visa fees, from $1,000 to $100,000 per year, and a sharp cut in visa duration from three years to one. This isn’t policy reform. It’s economic warfare.
For decades, India’s brightest minds – engineers, doctors, technologists – have kept the wheels of American innovation turning. Nearly three-quarters of H1B visa holders are Indians. They fill the talent gap in Silicon Valley, in hospitals, in research labs. Now, under Trump’s new rule, those workers are being priced out overnight.
Let’s call this what it is: a calculated strike. And not just against Indian professionals, but against the very foundation of India’s IT and tech-export economy. The remittances alone, worth $10 to $15 billion annually, are at stake. Thousands of Indian families depend on that money. Indian companies, already under pressure, now face a brain drain in reverse.
Meanwhile, our Prime Minister is still basking in the glow of a birthday phone call.
Where’s the outrage? Where’s the resistance? India is taking hit after hit: tariffs, H1B sabotage, sanctions on Chabahar, being tagged as a drug-trafficking nation. Modi’s response has been mostly silence, occasionally sprinkled with sugary praise for the man delivering the blows.
This isn’t diplomacy. This is delusion.
Trump is playing a hard-nosed, America-first game. That’s his brand. But India? We’re stuck playing dress-up at photo-ops and believing warm words equal policy wins. They don’t.
If this H1B move proves anything, it’s that strategic alignment is not a one-way street. America under Trump is protecting its own. India, under Modi, is protecting an image.
Even more absurd is the government’s spin machine trying to sell this disaster as an opportunity to stop brain drain. That’s rich. What alternative are we offering our youth? Crumbling infrastructure, soaring unemployment, and a tech ecosystem more dependent on subsidies than innovation?
You don’t fix brain drain by closing escape routes. You fix it by making people want to stay.
Trump’s move is brutal, yes. But it’s also a wake-up call. India needs to rethink its blind faith in symbolic alliances and start building real leverage. That means investing in homegrown talent ecosystems. That means pushing back loudly and clearly when our interests are trampled. That means understanding that foreign policy is not a birthday party; it’s a battlefield.
Until we get serious, we’ll keep mistaking handshakes for strategy and watching our future fly home, one shattered visa at a time.
