So imagine you wanted to make a business deal so badly that you handed the other guy a blank cheque, and then after you’d given up so much, the other guy said ‘no thanks.’” Thus began American National Public Radio’s news report on the faltering US-India nuclear agreement on Tuesday morning. The peculiar narrative — uniquely American in its colloquialism — was meant to express incomprehension at India’s apparent rejection of a beneficial agreement.

The UPA government’s unexpected decision not to pursue talks with the IAEA has produced a host of varying reactions in the US in addition to bewilderment: everything from despair to ennui. “It’s over,” an anonymous “western diplomat” told the London Times. US Congressman Gary Ackerman was less melodramatic, urging that the deal not be counted out. The US government has publicly adopted a cautious wait-and-see tone. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said over a week ago that the US government was willing to let New Delhi take its own time over the deal. His colleague Tom Casey continued in that vein this week. “We don’t want to interfere in this internal matter for the Indian government,” Casey said on Tuesday. “I will say that we would hope that... India would be able to move forward with this agreement and that we would be able to complete it in 2008, which was in general keeping with the original timeframe we had outlined for it.”

For the business communities — both Indian and American — the delay in consummating the nuclear agreement has naturally come as a setback. At the same time, business leaders have also echoed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statements that there is life beyond the nuclear agreement. It is clear that other aspects of the economic relationship will not be immediately impacted.

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