CWA # 2164
The World This Quarter
The United States (April-June 2026)
Trump’s Gunboat Diplomacy and its Returns
Washington continues to be transactional, unpredictable and temporary in its relations. A war has ended, but peace remains fragile. A trade deal stayed unsigned and is quickly becoming a liability. A World Cup flexing American hegemony. For India, th
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Shreya Upadhyay
30 June 2026
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The first quarter in 2026 saw US President Donald Trump declare victory before any conflict had actually concluded. The second quarter showed the results. The Iran war that started in February finally closed in June. There was no regime change that Trump had initially pursued. Instead, the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding containing 14 points was signed at the Palace of Versailles. The India trade deal, which was supposed to be the big breakthrough, remained unsigned for the entire quarter. And the US hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup has sparked significant backlash on aspects of racism, corruption, and the US immigration policies.
1. The Trade War that nobody can end
The Supreme Court's ruling on Trump’s tariff authority didn’t bring the rollback many people expected. Instead, the administration leaned harder on Section 301 investigations covering some sixty economies, India included, on charges of industrial overcapacity and forced labour. For New Delhi, that meant a whole quarter stuck in limbo. The “father of all deals” framework from February, to be implemented by April-May 2026, remained unsigned. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met twice this quarter. Both times the readout was “substantial progress” and a “very close deal” with no actual signature. A significant movement was the Modi-Trump meeting on the sidelines of the G7 in France on June 17, when the US President promised to visit India, signalling a thawing of relations. However, whether this translates into a signed deal before July 24 is the single biggest open question in India-US relations right now. Indian professionals have also been impacted due to immigration policies. There has been retrogression in the EB-1 and EB-2 visa categories for India. This means no green card approvals before October 2026.
2. Russia-Ukraine: Same conversation, different city
If Iran was this quarter’s resolution, Ukraine was its rerun. This quarter witnessed a dramatic shift in Ukraine’s tactics through drone strikes. Ukraine successfully targeted critical energy infrastructure and deep Russian oil refineries, and reclaimed hundreds of square kilometers of territory. On the other hand, the Russian war economy faced fiscal constraints and fuel shortages. The US facilitated multiple negotiations between the two countries in Geneva and Miami, but progress stalled. The only real product of the quarter was a three-day ceasefire over the May 9 Victory Day weekend, which was more rhetoric than a turning point. Russia is now seeking to renew the peace talks, even as it has questioned the US's neutrality, calling it not an “objective mediator.” New START expired in Q1 with nothing to replace it, making the nuclear and strategic landscape highly volatile.
3. The Iran War ends, but...
The greatest pivot of this quarter was the end of the Iran-US conflict, for now. The war started in February with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s assassination and Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict was brokered by Pakistan, resulting in the 14-point Islamabad Memorandum. The deal reopened the Strait toll-free for sixty days, lifted the dual US-Iran naval blockade, and placed the hardest question, what happens to Iran’s nuclear programme, into a two-month technical negotiation window. Iran shut the Strait again on June 20 over Israeli strikes in Lebanon, before talks in Switzerland produced a “deconfliction cell” to save the day. Eighty mines placed by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz still need to be cleared for normal shipping to resume. The economic damage has been brutal, with the IEA calling it the biggest oil-market supply disruption, and Iran itself put the cost at anywhere from $300 billion to $1 trillion. Pakistan got the biggest payoff by becoming a deal broker and is enjoying the diplomatic credibility associated with it. During the war, at least seven Indian sailors were killed in the Strait, in multiple incidents as international shipping got caught in the crossfire of the blockade. That, combined with the scale of the economic losses, makes a strong case for India to reduce its strategic dependence on Hormuz.
4. Sport becomes the new battlefield
The 2026 World Cup, co-hosted with Mexico and Canada and pitched by FIFA’s Gianni Infantino as “the greatest event mankind has ever seen,” turned instead into a live demonstration of how immigration policy beats soft power every time. Travel bans on 39 countries ran straight into a 48-team tournament. Iran’s squad had to relocate its training camp to Mexico, crossing into the US only on match days. A decorated Somali refugee was turned away at Miami International Airport with no explanation. Dozens of Moroccan fans, tickets in hand, had visas pulled days before kickoff. DHS confirmed ICE agents would be stationed at stadiums to crack down on “criminal activities”.
The US can get away with this because of money, not despite it. FIFA expects to clear $13 billion from this World Cup cycle, up more than 70 per cent from 2022, and the US market alone has driven domestic media rights up almost 94 per cent. Infantino is angling for re-election on the back of these numbers. That is the real leverage at play. Washington doesn’t need to defer to FIFA on immigration enforcement, because FIFA needs the American market far more than the American market needs FIFA’s approval. Soft power is not about charm offensive but who controls the revenue.
It’s not just football. US Cricket filed for financial reorganisation under Chapter 11 this quarter after the ICC suspended it over governance failures. This threw prep for the 2026 T20 World Cup and cricket’s LA28 Olympic debut into chaos. The US is on track to host the three biggest events in global sport inside thirty months. Mega-events are America’s easiest soft-power win not because the world trusts Washington, but because the world cannot afford to skip the American market.
5. Global Governancewithout the US anchor
Chatham House’s June report called for the establishment of a permanent alliance of market-oriented economies “third pole” in the global economy. Its goal would be to preserve and improve, in the largest possible economic space, the core principles and rules of economic openness, the absence of coercion,, and the pursuit of mutual benefit. At its core, it will comprise the EU and the 12 countries of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), plus potentially other major economies whose objectives align with those of the pole, such as Brazil, South Africa, and South Korea. Carnegie’s recent piece ‘Global Governance in the Twenty-First Century: Sustain, Reform, Transform’ also discusses how middle powers and regional blocs are emerging as alternatives to major powers, playing a larger role in preserving the rules-based order and reforming existing institutions. This is an attempt to move away from American hegemony with an attempt to relocate multilateralism
To Conclude: The US in Apr-Jun 2026
Washington continues to be transactional, unpredictable and temporary in its relations. A war has ended, but peace remains fragile. A trade deal stayed unsigned and is quickly becoming a liability. A World Cup flexing American hegemony. For India, the quarter was mostly about waiting. Trade talks were unresolved, visa categories sliding backward, Pakistan’s stock rising, lives lost in the Strait of Hormuz, and Modi’s first sit-down with Trump in over a year only happening at the tail end of the quarter. Time for New Delhi to move faster, and to decide where it wants to be: in Washington’s orbit, or carving out a seat at whatever multilateral order comes next.
About the author
Dr Shreya Upadhyay is an Assistant Professor at Christ (deemed to be) University, Bengaluru, and Fellow, Kalinga Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies.
