A new report put out by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace surveys the opinions of Indian Americans toward the history and future trajectory of US-India relations under both the Biden and Trump administrations.
Entitled, “Foreign Policy Attitudes of Indian Americans: 2024 Survey Results,” the report says the community believes the Biden administration ably managed bilateral relations between the two democracies, but gives a mixed assessment of what relations under Trump might entail.
Released on March 10, 2025, the report is co-authored by Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, Annabel Richter, and Milan Vaishnav. There have by several blips in the bilateral relationship, including most recently, the US federal indictment of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, and the case of the alleged murder-for-hire plot against an American Sikh activist for Khalistan.
“Given that more than 5 million people of Indian origin reside in the United States today, these developments naturally invite questions about the diaspora’s views on foreign policy: How do Indian Americans evaluate the Biden administration’s stewardship of U.S.-India ties? Do they think Trump will be better for India? How do they view India’s own trajectory, including the results of the June 2024 election?” are questions the survey tries to answer.
The analysis is based on a nationally representative online survey of 1,206 Indian American adult residents—the Indian American Attitudes Survey (IAAS)—conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace between September 18 and October 15, 2024, in partnership with the research and analytics firm YouGov. The survey has an overall maximum margin of error of +/- 3 percent.
The study is the second in a three-part series on the social, political, and foreign policy attitudes of Indian Americans drawing on the 2024 IAAS. Following are the major findings of the study outlined in a press release:
- Indian Americans view the Biden administration’s record on India positively. Roughly half of respondents approve of the Biden administration’s handling of U.S.-India relations. Roughly four in ten believe the administration’s support for India was appropriately calibrated, though there are diverse opinions on how well the United States balanced its interests versus its values.
- Many Indian Americans are concerned about bilateral relations under the Trump administration. Indian Americans rate the Biden administration’s record on India slightly better than the first Trump administration’s. In addition, respondents believe the bilateral relationship would have been more likely to prosper under a putative Harris administration compared to a second Trump administration.
- The “murder-for-hire” allegations, while sensational, are not well known. Only about half of all respondents are aware of the allegations of India’s involvement in an attempted assassination on U.S. soil. A slim majority of respondents report that India would not be justified in taking such action and hold identical feelings about the United States if the positions were reversed.
- Indian Americans are divided on the question of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indian Americans do not hold a monolithic view of the conflict in the Middle East, though there are clear partisan divides. Democrats are more likely to side with and express empathy for the Palestinian cause than Republicans, who espouse more pro-Israel views. Overall, four in ten respondents state that the Biden administration favored Israel too much in the ongoing conflict.
- Compared to 2020, Indian Americans are more bullish on India’s trajectory. Forty-seven percent of Indian Americans believe that India is headed in the right direction, a 10 percentage point increase from four years ago. The same share approves of Modi’s prime ministerial performance. Four in ten respondents report that India’s 2024 election made the country more democratic.
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