External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday said India-US ties had faced “bumps” over the pace and complexity of trade negotiations, tariff uncertainty and differences over India’s concerns about terrorism originating from Pakistan .
He said a lack of sufficient understanding or appreciation of India’s concerns on terrorism could affect its relationship with its partners, as he also discussed the changing dynamics of ties between New Delhi and Washington.
“We feel that as a country, perhaps there are very few countries which have been subjected to the kind of terrorism that we have from a neighbour as part of a deliberate, conscious policy over many, many decades.
“For us in India, what is particularly important is the issue of terrorism,” Jaishankar said. “Foreign policy or diplomacy today is not just something which is conducted by states or leaders or ministers or even by diplomats,” he said.
Sharif, in his UNGA address, referred to the four-day military confrontation between India and Pakistan in May 2025 following Operation Sindoor .
He said Pakistan exercised its “inherent right of self-defence” under Article 51 of the UN Charter. He also praised Pakistan’s armed forces and credited US President Donald Trump with “timely intervention” during the confrontation.
Speaking at an Asia Society event in New York alongside former US diplomat Daniel Russel, Jaishankar said India’s economic structure had made trade negotiations more complicated than initially expected, while changes in the US tariff framework had added another layer of uncertainty. “The relationship has had its bumps, I would say, primarily over the pace and the complexity of the trade negotiations,” Jaishankar said. He said India’s large base of small producers, agricultural producers and factories meant that negotiating a trade agreement involved addressing a complex set of interests.
