Best friends forever?: A file photo of Trump (right) and Modi walking at the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on June 26, 2017. Modi will be the fourth world leader to visit Trump at the White House since his return. — Reuters
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will try on a US visit to pick up where he left off four years ago in wooing Donald Trump, as he offered quick tariff concessions in hopes of avoiding the second-term president’s wrath.
For nearly three decades, US presidents from both parties have prioritised building ties with India, seeing a natural partner against a rising China. But Trump has also raged against India over trade, in the past calling the world’s fifth-largest economy the “biggest tariff abuser.”
Trump himself has unapologetically weaponised tariffs against friends and foes since returning to office last month. Ahead of Modi’s visit, the Indian government slashed duties on high-end motorcycles – a boost to Harley-Davidson, the iconic American company whose struggles in motorbike-loving India have captured Trump’s attention.
India has “done its groundwork and has already taken positive steps to set a good tone” with Trump, said Lisa Curtis, the National Security Council director on South Asia during Trump’s first term.
Modi “has prepared for this, and he is seeking to preempt Trump’s anger,” said Curtis, now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
Modi has also obliged Trump on one of his top priorities – deporting undocumented immigrants.
While public attention has focused on Latin American migrants, India is the third source of undocumented immigrants in the United States after Mexico and El Salvador.
In an account that drew wide attention in India, some 100 migrants were flown back from the United States in shackles the whole journey. Angered activists in New Delhi burned an effigy of Trump.
The main opposition Congress party called the treatment of Indian citizens an “insult” and accused Modi of weakness toward Trump.
But Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government – which itself has vowed no tolerance for undocumented migrants from Muslim-majority Bangladesh – has promised cooperation.
Modi arrived yesterday in Washington after an artificial intelligence summit in Paris and will see Trump today, making him the fourth world leader to visit him at the White House since his return, following the prime ministers of Israel and Japan and king of Jordan.
Modi assiduously courted Trump during his first term. The two share much in common, with both campaigning on promises to promote the interests of their countries’ majority communities over minorities and both shifting long-held democratic norms by doggedly pursuing critics. — AFP
