Although there are striking similarities between the geopolitics of the Indian subcontinent and the Korean Peninsula, the international relations community rarely pays attention to their parallel trajectories. Recent events provide a useful starting point for a comparison: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s troubled dealings with U.S. President Donald Trump contrast sharply with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung’s smoother handling of the White House’s real and imagined peace diplomacy during his visit to Washington last month. Modi’s difficulties and Lee’s successes also offer insights into the prospects for Trump’s peace initiatives in Asia.
In the 1940s, the subcontinent and the Korean Peninsula were both partitioned—under very different circumstances but with similarly lasting consequences. These divisions created two of the world’s most intractable conflicts: between India and Pakistan and between North and South Korea. The proliferation of nuclear weapons in both regions by the 1990s elevated them into major security concerns for Washington and the world.
Whereas the United States played a direct role in Korea’s division and has been deeply engaged in the peninsula’s security ever since, its role in South Asia was inherited from Britain and has always been less direct, if enduring. The rigidity of the Korean order was codified in Washington’s alliance with Seoul. In South Asia, by contrast, the United States kept ties with both India and Pakistan.
India’s nonalignment limited military cooperation with Washington, while Pakistan joined the U.S.-led alliances during the Cold War and later became a major non-NATO ally. Since the end of the Cold War, as the Soviet threat faded and China’s rise gathered pace, the United States has expanded its strategic partnership with India while retaining counterterrorism links with Pakistan.
Yet entrenched conflict remained the common thread. Despite frequent U.S. initiatives in South Asia and periodic efforts in the Koreas, the rivalries between India and Pakistan and those between North and South Korea have endured.
Trump’s self-image as a peacemaker has so far fared poorly in both theaters. Modi publicly dismissed Trump’s claim that it was he who brokered the cease-fire that ended the four-day war between India and Pakistan this May. New Delhi acknowledged calls from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance during the conflict, but it insisted that hostilities ended only after a direct request from a top Pakistani general to his Indian counterpart on May 10. Modi reinforced this line by telling Trump in June that India would never accept third-party mediation—a position later underlined by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri.
In doing so, Modi publicly contradicted Trump’s claims and, in effect, called out the president’s claim as untrue. Many observers believe that Modi’s unwillingness to play along with Trump on his imagined peacemaker role offended the White House.
In a phone call in mid-June, Modi apparently did not respond to Trump’s suggestion that India could nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. This, in turn, set the stage for the unraveling of the special relationship that was so evident between the two leaders during Trump’s first term—and for the reversal of many years of tightening India-U.S. relations.
After that, Trump not only repeated ad nauseam his claim to have stopped the war between India and Pakistan but also embarked in a punitive mission against India. Many observers see Modi’s failure to play his expected role in this charade as the source of Trump’s tougher line on New Delhi, including his rejection of trade deals that had already been negotiated at the bureaucratic level and the imposition of a 25 percent tariff on Indian goods exports.
This was followed by an additional 25 percent punitive levy, ostensibly on the grounds of India’s purchases of Russian oil—a strange justification, considering that Trump has yet to put any new pressure on Russia or place a similar tariff on China, the largest importer of Russian oil. The perception that Washington was singling out India because of Trump’s peacemaking fixation has been reinforced by the intensified White House attacks on New Delhi in general and Modi in particular.
That Modi had done more than any other Indian leader to build closer ties with Washington seemed to carry little weight with the White House. Trump’s trade advisor Peter Navarro launched a particularly ugly campaign against India; in a post on X criticizing Modi’s policies, Navarro tagged a picture of Modi meditating in saffron robes. Modi’s personal rapport with Trump during the latter’s first term, as well as a quarter-century of bipartisan investment in the U.S.-India partnership, were brushed aside in a fit of presidential pique.
In contrast, Lee flattered Trump’s peace ambitions. His effusive praise helped him smooth over difficulties on trade and reassure Washington that, despite his progressive politics, he was not hostile to the United States. Lee framed himself as a “pacemaker” for Trump’s peacemaking, underlining the U.S. president’s potential role in reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula. Some argue that Modi could have used similar flattery, or at least a well-timed phone call, to soothe Trump.
But that is unlikely. South Korea has long depended on the United States for security and market access. Its national self-image is that of a “shrimp among whales”—requiring agility and flexibility for survival. India, by contrast, sees itself as an elephant and faces no existential threat. Its prickly nationalism, sharpened under Modi, makes it politically impossible to adopt Lee’s overtly pandering tactics.
For these and other reasons, India reacts badly to pressure tactics. This was evident at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Tianjin, China, this week, where Modi showcased his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his reengagement with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
That does not mean that the Modi-Trump relationship cannot recover. One can imagine a grand bargain in which both leaders find a way to reset ties. This could include a resolution of the ostensible dispute on Russian oil, a fresh effort to arrive at a trade deal, and even a framework for peace in South Asia.
Trump’s approach to peacemaking departs from the traditional frameworks of human rights or self-determination. For him, peace is about business. He imagines mega-resorts in Gaza, mineral exploitation in Ukraine and Arctic Russia, and leasing land along a “Trump corridor” in the South Caucasus.
In this light, his idea of developing oil and gas deposits in Pakistan and selling those resources to India is an interesting one, and New Delhi should not dismiss it outright. To be sure, there is much skepticism about the scope of Pakistan’s hydrocarbon reserves, although recent claims about massive offshore deposits have generated some new excitement.
Of interest here is not so much the question of Pakistan’s oil reserves but the idea of commercial cooperation between the South Asian rivals. Could Trump succeed in overcoming entrenched Pakistani resistance to economic cooperation with India? The United States has tried to promote energy cooperation between Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India in the past. But these ideas never got very far due to opposition in Pakistan.
For his part, Modi is not averse to creative ideas for peace. His real concern remains Pakistan’s alleged continued sponsorship of terrorism. If Trump could persuade the Pakistan Army to break with its long tradition of supporting extremism and open the way for cross-border commerce, then Modi might be happy to respond. After all, Modi began his first term in 2014 by inviting then-Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to his inauguration, and in 2015, he made a surprise visit to Lahore to open doors for security cooperation. With his nationalist credentials and strong domestic standing, Modi arguably has more political capital than any other Indian leader to explore new peace initiatives.
On the Korean Peninsula, Seoul’s progressives have long advocated engagement with Pyongyang, dating back to former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung’s Sunshine Policy of the late 1990s. Economic cooperation was attempted but faltered, in part due to Washington’s reluctance to move beyond the nuclear weapons issue. Trump broke that mold in his first term by meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un three times. Trump remains less bound by conventional wisdom than his predecessors and more willing to explore peace as business.
The real obstacles to “peace as business” lie with the Pakistan Army and North Korea’s Kim dynasty. Each fears that reconciliation would erode its hold on power. But if they could be assured that their dominance would remain intact—and if business deals could be structured to benefit both by lifting up the sagging economies of Pakistan and North Korea—then new pathways to stability might open in both South Asia and Northeast Asia. Who knows—it could even win Trump and his fellow peacemakers a Nobel Prize.
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