An understanding of the UK’s Indo-Pacific policy through a special analysis of the India-UK Free Trade Agreement
In 2024, the UK came up with an Indo-Pacific strategy report titled “Tilting Horizons: the Integrated Review and the Indo-Pacific” to elucidate the significance of the Indo-Pacific region for British foreign policy. The report expounds that while the security of the Euro-Atlantic region would remain the core national security priority for the UK, the region of Indo-Pacific has acquired ascending significance on account of security threats emanating from the region that have global repercussions.
The UK’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific can be understood to stem from partly geopolitical and partly economic necessities. On the geopolitical front, China’s growing assertiveness in shaping a China-centric international order has cast negative repercussions on the free, open and rules-based nature of the Indo-Pacific region. Economically, the UK’s decoupling from the European Union (EU) has promoted diversity in its economic and security partnerships, comprising mostly countries from the Asia-Pacific region.
The UK explained the “tilt” towards the Indo-Pacific by stating that Euro-Atlantic security is inextricably linked with Indo-Pacific stability. Further supporting the fact, Lord George Robertson, the former Defence Secretary and NATO Secretary General, delineated that the UK and its allies are facing a “deadly quartet” of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, who are “increasingly working together” to undermine security in the adjoining regions. Primary UK partners in the Indo-Pacific include Australia, South Korea, India, Singapore, Vietnam and New Zealand. Against this strategic backdrop, the India-UK Comprehensive and Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) merits special attention as India is a linchpin actor for upholding the security of the Indo-Pacific region.
The CETA: Cementing the UK’s all-round ties to the Indo-Pacific region
Negotiations on working on a free trade agreement were first commenced in February 2022. In 2021, as delineated in the Integrated Review, an Enhanced Trade Partnership (ETP) was initiated to construct a “roadmap to a potential comprehensive trade deal.” The agreement resolved a number of trade barriers between the two countries, which paved the way towards finalising the free trade deal, which was signed on May 6, 2025, following over three years of negotiations. The pact aims to increase annual bilateral trade by £25.5 billion and has committed to doubling trade to US$120 billion by 2030, with an additional US$40 billion projected by 2040.
The trade deal has been touted as the most significant economic deal to have been concluded since Brexit. The agreement covers almost the entire trade basket between the two countries and ensures 85 percent of British exports- from whisky and agricultural goods, to aerospace equipment– and 99 percent of Indian exports enter each other’s respective markets duty-free. Further, UK products would obtain greater access to the large Indian consumer market while India’s services sector stands to gain immensely, especially in high-employment sectors such as textiles, agricultural products, and pharmaceuticals. The agreement is expected to increase UK GDP by £4.8 billion annually, and Indian exports to the UK are also expected to double by 2030. However, assessments of sector-wise economic gains flowing from the deal are still undetermined.
For instance, under the pact, tariffs on imports from the UK, such as scotch whisky and gin, have been slashed by half immediately from 150 percent to 75 percent which would double market access for such businesses to six percent by 2040. However, such a move can be expected to benefit only a certain section of the Indian elite consumers and not the average citizens. Similarly, for the UK automobile industry, access to the large Indian automotive market has been increased under the deal, but UK manufacturers have to compete in a niche already dominated by German automobile industries, which assemble auto components mostly in India to take advantage of lower tariffs.
Further, the trade deal promotes the growth of soft power influences in strengthening the bilateral relationship. Under the business mobility clause, the UK government has extended an additional quota for Indian service professionals, such as chefs, yoga teachers, and classical musicians, to travel and work in the UK for up to one year, which is collectively limited to 1800 people a year. Shortly after the signing of the deal, the UK Prime Minister KeirStarmer led a 125-member delegation to India comprising key representatives of British entertainment companies in the hope of creating a new genre of “Bollybrit” movies.
The delegation also consisted of leading British CEOs such as British Airways CEO Sean Doyle, BP CEO Murray Auchincloss and Wouter van Wersch, entrepreneurs, and vice-chancellors of prestigious universities, in a bid to showcase the wide-ranging vistas of collaboration expected between the two countries across diverse fields, including trade, finance, education, and culture. Shortly after the delegation visit, Prime Minister Modi announced that after Southampton University, six more UK universities would be opening campuses in India.
The finalisation of the trade agreement also witnessed stronger security collaboration between the two countries’ armed forces. The Indian Navy and the British Royal Navy conducted a unique maritime drill known as Konkan-25, in which, for the first time, the Carrier Strike Groups of both countries participated as a symbol of growing maritime security cooperation in the Indian Ocean.
The high-profile exercise was part of the British Royal Navy’s Operation Highmast, an eight-month global deployment, and involved complex multi-domain operations including anti-submarine warfare, cross-deck flying operations, and air defence drills. Following closely on the heels of Konkan-25, the Indian Army and British Army participated in Ajeya Warrior-25 exercise to strengthen counter-terrorism capabilities in a semi-urban environment. Further, the UK has also announced the formal launch of ‘Defence Partnership-India’ or DP-I, a dedicated cell within the UK Ministry of Defence for deepening military cooperation with India.
Under the initiative, the UK has sought to open a defence component assembling and test facility in India. The two countries have come together to collaborate on advanced technology in programs such as Electric Propulsion Capability Partnership (EPCP) for naval ships and the Jet Engine Advanced Core Technologies (JEACTS). Under the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI), the two countries have announced plans to set up a regional Maritime Security Centre for Excellence to exchange logistical data for combating non-traditional maritime security threats in the region.
The UK strategy of multi-alignment in the Indo-Pacific
According to the Integrated Review Refresh, Russia constitutes the foremost geopolitical threat to UK national security, while China’s wide-ranging support for Russia, which in turn has aided Iran in augmenting its rapidly developing nuclear capabilities, is an issue of particular concern. In such a scenario, the UK is opting for more strategic, issue-based cooperation and partnerships with Indo-Pacific countries sharing alignment of interests.
The UK’s decision to leave the EU was based particularly on issues of greater strategic autonomy in formulating its own trade and fiscal policies, including with countries which are non-EU members such as the United States, Australia, and New Zealand; and determining its own visa application rules and labour rights for migrants from within the EU to live and work in the UK and vice versa.
Having a solid cemented relationship with the United States, its most critical ally and partner in the Atlantic, and with other treaty-allied countries in multilateral groupings such as the Five Eyes and the G7; the UK now makes it a priority to enter into limited issue-based strategic partnerships with countries and regional organisations such as India, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Australia and the ASEAN bloc.
Notable achievements in the Indo-Pacific region include the AUKUS defence pact including Australia, the US, and the UK, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) free trade agreement which is currently serving twelve member countries mostly located in the Asia-Pacific region with the UK as the sole European country yet to have joined the bloc, and establishing a full dialogue partnership with the ASEAN.
Conclusion: Challenges and Vision
The strategic partnerships of the UK in the Indo-Pacific come with their own set of challenges. For example, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee review report on ‘Tilt’ to the Indo-Pacific cautions that the UK government’s policy shift to the Indo-Pacific should not be at the expense of other regions like the Middle East, to which the UK has had long-standing commitments. The ‘tilt’ acknowledges the UK’s Indo-Pacific policy while alleging that the official establishment lacks specific and tangible objectives to be achieved through this policy shift and questions the purpose of redirecting the UK’s under-staffed defence forces to the Indo-Pacific instead of backfilling in Europe to free up US forces.
The overt US coercive pressure on allies to tackle more of the burden of defence responsibility within NATO becomes evident in this analysis. Similarly, the UK’s niche for formal, legally-binding defence treaties to tackle security threats is reflected strongly in the establishment’s strategic mindset, as it fails to explain the military measures it is willing to undertake in the Indo-Pacific in the event of a direct US-China conflict or US intervention in the event of China’s aggression against Taiwan.
At this nascent stage, the vision of the UK towards the Indo-Pacific region involves building new economic and security linkages to enhance partnerships as well as interoperability of regional troops in order to dovetail countermeasures to security threats afflicting the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific region.
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