A day after the United States and Iran struck an interim deal on June 14, 2026, to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, it remains unclear whether the agreement will be implemented at all. Not only have details not been made public, but negotiators have, by all accounts, pushed the difficult issues down the road. There is no mention in the interim agreement of Iran’s nuclear programme, its missile programme, or even ending Tehran’s support for regional groups. Iran’s top officials maintain that a final deal for a lasting truce is yet to take shape.

Washington’s troubling response

These developments, though significant, are unlikely to make headlines in India, where policymakers and the public are still smarting over the deaths of three Indian sailors in a U.S. strike in the Strait of Hormuz on June 10.

Particularly galling are the remarks by the U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who told External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar last week that “violations of the American blockade and the illicit transport of Iranian oil would not be tolerated and that commercial vessels must immediately comply with US forces”. There was reportedly no expression of condolence for the deaths of the sailors, nor any indication that the incident would prompt a broader reassessment of the risks now confronting civilian shipping in the Gulf.

The implication was unmistakable: Washington does not view the episode principally as a humanitarian tragedy requiring accountability, but as a compliance problem arising from the failure of merchant vessels to obey American directives.

That framing has implications for New Delhi. It suggests that for Washington, the safety of neutral shipping and the interests of partner countries during a conflict are secondary to the enforcement of U.S. strategic objectives. Merchant vessels are expected simply to comply with American instructions; should they become collateral victims of the increasingly militarised environment in the Strait of Hormuz, the costs are expected to be borne by the countries that own the ships and by the sailors who crew them.

Indian sailors stand alone

For a nation such as India, whose economic interests are deeply tied to the free flow of commerce through the Strait of Hormuz and whose citizens make up a significant share of the global maritime workforce, this should be unacceptable. Great power competition inevitably imposes costs on third parties with little say in the decisions that create or sustain crises. But those costs cannot simply be externalised onto partner countries and civilian mariners in the expectation that they will quietly acquiesce.

India’s predicament is particularly stark because it supplies roughly a fifth of the world’s maritime workforce but possesses few realistic means of ensuring the safety of its seafarers. The Indian Navy’s escort operations in the Gulf are valuable but necessarily limited. They cannot protect the more than 18,000 Indian sailors in the region, many of whom serve aboard vessels registered under flags of convenience such as Palau, Guinea-Bissau and the Marshall Islands. Such flags offer little meaningful diplomatic protection in times of crisis. When things go wrong, Indian sailors are often left effectively stateless from a protection standpoint. The three deaths aboard the MT Settebello have exposed a structural vulnerability that New Delhi has long recognised but never adequately addressed.

Whether or not this will fundamentally alter the trajectory of India-U.S. relations is hard to say. The bilateral relationship possesses too many load-bearing elements — defence cooperation, critical technologies, the Indo-Pacific and the Quad (Australia, India, Japan, U.S..) — for one incident to trigger a rupture. Even so, Mr. Rubio’s remarks seem to have done real damage at the level of trust and political optics. New Delhi’s summoning of the U.S. Chargé d’Affaires twice within three days last week signals genuine anger. Many in India view Washington’s response not as an aberration but as evidence of a deeper pattern: when the interests of partner states conflict with American strategic objectives, the U.S. invariably chooses itself.

Seeking accountability and answers

From an Indian standpoint, accountability for the incident has yet to be established. India must push for a credible, independent fact-finding investigation into the circumstances surrounding the strike. Beyond bilateral protest, New Delhi should consider taking the issue to multilateral forums, including the International Maritime Organization and consultations with other crewing and flag states. A lone démarche simply does not carry the weight of a coordinated international position. Importantly, Indian officials must articulate a principled and consistent position on maritime norms, one that applies irrespective of how powerful the state violating them may be.

For the Narendra Modi government, this episode is about more than the tragic deaths of three Indian sailors. Mr. Rubio’s remarks have inadvertently laid bare an uncomfortable truth about great-power partnerships: strategic empathy has limits. The United States may regard India as an indispensable partner in the Indo-Pacific, but it will not subordinate its priorities in the Gulf to Indian sensitivities. That is not a reason for New Delhi to distance itself from Washington. It is, however, a reminder that close partnerships do not eliminate divergences of interest. India must continue to engage the U.S. with clear eyes and defend its maritime interests without assuming that others will do so on its behalf.

Abhijit Singh is a retired naval officer and former Head of the Maritime Policy Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), New Delhi