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Worried about China’s growing influence in Asia, US leaders have tried to cultivate ties with India for decades. It was a forward-looking strategy that anticipated India’s economic growth and increasing importance as a market for American goods and services.

Twenty-five years ago, India’s economy didn’t even crack the world’s Top 10. Now, it is in the top five and offers trading partners nearly 1.5 billion potential consumers.

US policy changed with Donald Trump, who is doing his best to wreck that relationship.

Why?

If this report in The New York Times is to be believed, then it’s because Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wouldn’t endorse Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize bid.

Of course, it could also be because the president doesn’t understand international trade and views any imbalance to the US’s disadvantage as a slight.

Either way, the next thing you know, Trump slapped a 50 percent tariff on India that went into effect last week and threatens to wreak havoc with its economy.

And on Monday, the US president tried to downplay the significance of the relationship between the two countries.

“What few people understand is that we do very little business with India, but they do a tremendous amount of business with us,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “In other words, they sell us massive amounts of goods, their biggest ‘client,’ but we sell them very little.”

While it is true that the US imports more from India than it exports, the Asian country is its 12th largest customer and buys $41 billion in goods and services from American businesses.

Not enough for Trump, who feels that the US is being taken advantage of.

“The reason [for a one-sided relationship] is that India has charged us, until now, such high Tariffs, the most of any country, that our businesses are unable to sell into India,” he wrote.

That’s not even remotely close to the truth, according to a document the White House released in April that showed the tariffs other countries are imposing on the US.

Finally, the president correctly noted that India purchases oil and military equipment from Russia, which provides Moscow with resources to continue its war against Ukraine.

When Trump announced the 50 percent tariff on India, he listed this as one of the main reasons. However, he is not imposing levies on other countries that buy from Russia, even though doing so might force Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table to end the conflict.

While his supporters like to claim that Trump plays “3D chess,” the result of his short-sighted decision to punish India (for whatever reason) became apparent Monday, when Modi met with Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and other regional leaders in Tianjin.

While China and India have had their differences, Modi is sending a message to Washington that the US is not the only game in town.

Between them, the two Asian countries are home to nearly three billion people – more than a third of the global population.

While Trump may well be able to bully other nations, US businesses can ill afford to lose these potential customers, especially as India’s economy grows and the buying power of the people living there increases.

We saw the same thing take place with China. In 2000, its imports totaled $225 billion. Now, it is more than five times as much.

While it is possible that Modi will return to the negotiating table (Trump claimed on Monday that India is willing to eliminate all tariffs), the events of this week show that the US president’s short-sighted and impulsive tariff policies will have consequences that go far beyond trade.

In a few short months, he has forced other countries, including (former) allies, to band together and treat the United States as an adversary rather than a partner.

And while the president’s policies may result in a smaller trade deficit now, India’s turn toward China and Russia is just one more example of the steep price the US will pay down the road for Trump’s isolationism.

In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.