Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has returned to the White Home for his first go to of Donald Trump’s second time period as United States president.
Trump and Modi’s relationship has been dubbed a “bromance” in some media shops — and that affinity continued to simmer robust throughout Thursday’s assembly.
The 2 leaders heaped reward on each other, whereas publicly sidestepping extra prickly factors of debate.
Chief amongst them was the query of Trump’s newly introduced “reciprocal tariffs”, during which he proposes to reply international import taxes on US items with charges equal to what every nation imposes.
Trump has lengthy criticised India for its excessive tariff fee on international items, even reportedly calling Modi the “king of tariffs”.
However at Thursday’s assembly, the 2 leaders introduced they might pursue a “framework” for better cooperation.
“ Prime Minister Modi and I’ve agreed that we are going to be in negotiations to deal with the long-running disparities,” Trump mentioned, referring to the US-India commerce relationship.
“However actually, we wish a sure degree of taking part in discipline, which we actually suppose we’re entitled to.”
However their newly introduced framework went past import taxes, to incorporate collaborations on area journey, worldwide safety and the vitality commerce.
Listed below are 4 takeaways from their assembly.
Modi embraces Trump’s MAGA motion
Each right-wing leaders, Modi and Trump have each confronted accusations of democratic backsliding of their international locations.
The 2 leaders additionally lately gained re-election of their respective international locations: Modi in June, and Trump final November.
A lot of their public appearances on Thursday was devoted to affirming their dedication to 1 one other, with Trump applauding Modi as a “nice chief” and Modi calling Trump a “good friend”.
Amid the back-slapping, Modi appealed to Trump’s delight in his slogan, “Make America Nice Once more”, providing an Indian twist on the motto.
“The folks of America are conscious of President Trump’s motto, ‘Make America Nice Once more’ or MAGA,” Modi mentioned by a translator.
“Borrowing an expression from the US, our imaginative and prescient for a developed India is to ‘Make India Nice Once more’, or MIGA. When America and India work collectively, when it’s MAGA plus MIGA, it turns into mega — a mega partnership for prosperity.”
A member of the Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP), Modi additionally in contrast his Hindu nationalist platform to Trump’s “America First” agenda, saying that he too places his nation’s priorities first.
“One factor that I deeply respect and I discovered from President Trump is that he retains the nationwide curiosity supreme,” Modi mentioned by a translator. “And like him, I additionally maintain the nationwide curiosity of India on the high of the whole lot else.”
India’s concessions on commerce
Confronted with the prospect of economy-buckling tariffs, world leaders have appealed to Trump with varied concessions.
Mexico, for example, has despatched nationwide guard troops to its southern border with the US. Canada arrange joint process pressure to fight fentanyl trafficking and organised crime.
And on Thursday, Modi arrived together with his personal presents, designed to blunt any financial measures Trump might take in opposition to India.
The 2 leaders emerged from their closed-door assembly with an settlement to extend commerce between their international locations, together with by partnerships on area journey, synthetic intelligence and vitality manufacturing. Modi pledged a “ new scale and scope” to their shared targets.
“We have now additionally set ourselves the goal of greater than doubling our bilateral commerce to realize $500bn by 2030,” Modi mentioned.
As of 2024, complete commerce between the 2 international locations amounted to an estimated $129.2bn, in keeping with US authorities statistics.
The US has at the moment a $45.7bn commerce deficit with India, with the South Asian nation exporting $87.4bn of products to the US. Trump, nonetheless, has publicly expressed his displeasure with such deficits, promising to slim them and improve US exports.
He has blamed international tariffs on US items, partly, for the disparity.
“Prime Minister Modi lately introduced the reductions to India’s unfair, very robust tariffs that restrict US entry into the Indian market very strongly. And actually it’s an enormous downside, I need to say,” Trump repeated on Thursday.
However he flashed indicators of optimism, saying that the US bond with India is “the strongest I consider it’s ever been”. He additionally implicated that India would improve its buy of US vitality merchandise, serving to to scale back the deficit.
“The prime minister and I additionally reached an necessary settlement on vitality that may restore america as a number one provider of oil and fuel to India. It will likely be hopefully their number-one provider,” Trump mentioned.
The US president additionally teased a world infrastructure just like China’s Belt and Highway Initiative, linking allies the world over.
“We agreed to work collectively to assist construct one of many biggest commerce routes in all of historical past. It is going to run from India to Israel to Italy and onward to america, connecting our companions by ports, railways and undersea cables — many, many undersea cables,” Trump defined.
He added that it might permit the US to “keep the chief” — a possible reference to continued financial competitors with China.
An emphasis on preventing ‘terrorism’
Whereas the assembly was anticipated to centre on countering China’s worldwide affect, one other safety matter emerged between the 2 allies: the spectre of “terrorism”.
A lot of the main target was on Trump’s pledge to extradite Chicago businessman Tahawwur Rana. In 2013, a US federal court docket sentenced Rana, a Pakistani Canadian citizen, to 14 years in jail for “conspiracy to offer materials help to a terrorist plot” in opposition to a information outlet in Denmark.
He was additionally convicted of offering materials help for the 2008 Mumbai assaults, which killed 175 folks.
Rana has appealed his impending extradition to India, the place he’s more likely to face the dying penalty. Final month, the US Supreme Court docket refused to dam the extradition proceedings, and with Trump’s go-ahead on Thursday, it’s all however sure to occur.
Modi praised Trump for his resolution at Thursday’s press convention, evaluating the Mumbai assaults to a “genocide”. He pledged “acceptable motion” can be taken in opposition to Rana in India’s courts.
“ India and US will stand strongly collectively within the struggle in opposition to terrorism,” Modi mentioned.
“We agree that with a view to remove cross-border terrorism, we want concrete actions. And I’m very grateful to President Trump that, in 2008, someone who carried out genocide in India — that legal is now going to be handed over to India.”
Trump, for his half, mentioned the US would improve army gross sales to India “by many billions of {dollars}”.
“As well as, america and India can be working collectively like by no means earlier than to confront the specter of radical Islamic terrorism — a risk everywhere in the world, truly.”
Modi, nonetheless, has been accused of turning a blind eye to anti-Muslim violence and spreading anti-Muslim hate speech.
Trump faces questions on Ukraine peace deal
One matter, nonetheless, that continued to crop up had little to do with the US-India relations.
As an alternative, Trump repeatedly fielded questions from reporters about his discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine.
The battle began three years in the past in February 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of the nation. However on Wednesday, a flurry of high-profile calls raised hopes of a attainable peace deal.
Trump had announced that morning that he had carried out a “prolonged and extremely productive cellphone name” with Putin. He adopted up with a second name to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
However whereas Trump and Putin exchanged agreements to go to one another’s international locations, Ukraine and its European allies expressed rising scepticism concerning the supposed negotiations.
Zelenskyy urged worldwide leaders to not take Putin’s assurances at face worth — and informed information shops {that a} peace negotiated with out Ukraine’s consent was no peace in any respect.
Trump, in the meantime, appeared to echo Russian speaking factors at his press convention with Modi. Russia has lengthy maintained that Ukraine’s need to enter the NATO alliance was a part of its motivations for struggle.
“Russia has gotten themselves into one thing that I feel they want they didn’t. If I had been president, it might not have occurred,” Trump mentioned.
“Now, Russia’s taken over a reasonably large chunk of territory. They usually even have mentioned from day one, lengthy earlier than President Putin, they’ve mentioned they can not have Ukraine be in NATO. They mentioned that very strongly. I truly suppose that that was the factor that prompted the beginning of the struggle.”
Russia has argued that the US assured the previous Soviet Union in 1990 that NATO would develop “not one inch eastward” — although no formal settlement on the matter was ever struck.
Trump beforehand mentioned it was “unlikely” that Ukraine would achieve again the territory Russia began to take with the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
However when requested on Thursday if Russia would hand over something within the peace negotiations, Trump dodged the query.
“It’s too early to say what’s going to occur. Perhaps Russia will hand over quite a bit, perhaps they gained’t, and it’s all depending on what’s going to occur.”
