New Delhi, India – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in Washington late on Wednesday night time and is scheduled to fulfill United States President Donald Trump on Thursday on the White Home.
Whereas the 2 leaders have typically described each other as friends prior to now, and have even held joint political rallies collectively, Modi’s go to comes at a time when the connection is being examined by Trump’s tariff threats and deportation realities.
“I sit up for assembly my good friend, President Trump,” Modi mentioned in a departing message, including that he has a “very heat recollection of working collectively in [Trump’s] first time period”.
Trump had introduced Modi’s go to to the US after their phone dialog on January 27, every week after he was sworn into workplace for his second time period. After their name, Trump additionally mentioned that he believed Modi would do “what is correct” on undocumented Indian migrants in the US.
However pleasing each Trump and the Indian public received’t be straightforward for Modi.
Right here’s what’s at stake for India, and what Modi would possibly carry with him to the assembly with Trump to attempt to placate the US president.
What’s at stake for India?
The US is India’s largest export vacation spot and ranks amongst its prime two commerce companions in a number of sectors, together with know-how, commerce, defence and power. The 2-way commerce between the US and India touched an all-time excessive of $118bn in 2023-24.
Bilateral ties have additionally strengthened within the final three many years because the US has more and more centered on countering the rise of a shared rival – China.
However regardless of that convergence, Trump has made clear – as he had with a number of US allies – that he has deep variations too with India.
Throughout his marketing campaign for the 2024 election, Trump labelled India a “very huge abuser” of commerce and threatened tariffs. Since being elected, he pushed New Delhi to purchase extra US-made safety gear as a solution to cut back the imbalance of their commerce. In 2024, the commerce surplus stood at $45.6bn, in favour of India, based on US authorities knowledge.
Trump’s re-election marketing campaign additionally highlighted undocumented immigration and unlawful settlement within the US. As of 2022, India ranked third, after Mexico and El Salvador, amongst international locations with the most important variety of undocumented immigrants – 725,000 – residing within the nation.
And on Wednesday final week, a US army airplane touched down in Amritsar, a metropolis in northern India, carrying 104 Indian deportees, their fingers and legs cuffed. Within the farthest such journey undertaken by a US army plane, the “mistreatment” of deportees prompted a major outrage, together with protests by the opposition, in India.
“India has all the time celebrated the success of Indians within the US, which implies Indian People have been a really seen neighborhood in India’s consciousness,” mentioned Swaran Singh, professor on the centre of worldwide politics at Delhi’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru College. Indian overseas coverage too, beneath Modi, has particularly celebrated nonresident Indians, he mentioned. “These dynamics make the mistreatment of Indian deportees a risky and inflammable subject in bilateral ties,” Singh mentioned.
Jon Danilowicz, a retired diplomat who served on the US Division of State, mentioned that Modi’s assembly with Trump “is principally a possibility for the Indian PM to current his aspect of the story to make New Delhi’s case”.
However what may Modi supply to handle the Trump menace on tariffs and deportation?
What’s Modi’s doubtless recreation plan on deportation?
Singh famous the Indian authorities’s muted official response to the outrage over photos of residents coming back from the US in cuffs.
That, he advised, was a deliberate resolution.
“Trump has some methodology in his insanity. He makes use of whimsical statements to create most strain,” mentioned Singh. “It’s not a very good sense to then publicly confront him [on contentious issues].”
As a substitute, after an uproar within the parliament, India’s overseas minister, S Jaishankar, mentioned that the usage of restraints was a part of the US’s deportation coverage, including that “it’s the obligation of all international locations to take again their nationals if they’re discovered to be residing illegally overseas”.
“Our focus must be on a robust crackdown on the unlawful migration business whereas taking steps to ease visas for authentic travellers,” mentioned Jaishankar.
How would possibly Modi counter Trump on tariffs?
Trump has promised to announce additional tariffs later this week, and although he hasn’t specified which international locations or sectors may be focused, India is anticipated to be affected.
On Wednesday, White Home Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt mentioned that she anticipated these reciprocal tariffs – towards international locations that Trump believes impose unfair restrictions on US imports – to be introduced earlier than the US president meets Modi.
Trump has already imposed a ten % tariff on all Chinese language imports on prime of present tariffs and has launched a 25 % tariff on all metal and aluminium imports.
However when Modi meets Trump, the Indian PM may level to latest unilateral steps that India has taken to decrease the boundaries to entry for US items, say analysts.
Historically, India, an rising economic system, has had excessive tariffs in place for a number of imported merchandise that it feared may harm its home business and farm sector. Nevertheless, in its newest funds, introduced on February 1, the Modi authorities slashed tariffs and averted any protectionist bulletins.
Such steps would possibly “preempt some motion of the US administration”, mentioned Danilowicz.
India, in spite of everything, is aware of the dangers of a tariff warfare with the US. In 2018, Trump had imposed tariffs of 25 % on $761m of metal and 10 % on $382m of aluminium imported from India, which retaliated by including customs duties to not less than 28 US merchandise. After years of commerce tensions, in 2023, a decision was introduced throughout a Modi go to to Washington.
Modi will need to keep away from a repeat.
“India has to date escaped the direct tariff warmth by the brand new Trump administration and that could be a constructive signal,” mentioned Biswajit Dhar, a distinguished professor on the Council for Social Improvement in New Delhi.
Dhar, a world commerce skilled, advised Al Jazeera that Modi wants to make use of this assembly “to persuade Trump that India performs a good recreation vis-a-vis commerce and, due to this fact, India must be handled in another way.”
“If China is slapped with these sorts of tariffs, then the identical factor shouldn’t occur to India,” Dhar mentioned, including that the “personalised background” to the duo’s relationship ought to permit house to accommodate these discussions. “At least, India wouldn’t like itself to be clubbed together with China.”
In any case, China – or slightly the shared suspicion of Beijing’s plans for the Asia Pacific area – is the most important glue that holds the India-US relationship collectively.
‘Dedication to QUAD’
Modi is barely the fourth world chief to fulfill Trump since his re-election, after conflict-engaged Israel, Jordan and Japan, its ally within the Asia Pacific. International coverage specialists advised Al Jazeera that being invited this early in Trump’s time period reveals how vital the US president considers ties with India.
China is an enormous a part of that.
A day after Trump was sworn in because the forty seventh US president, his newly appointed secretary of state, Marco Rubio, held a gathering with fellow overseas ministers of India, Australia and Japan. The 4 nations – with a collective inhabitants of almost two billion individuals and representing greater than a 3rd of world gross home produce (GDP) – type the Quad, a strategic discussion board centered on the Asia Pacific area.
The Modi-Trump cellphone name on January 27 additionally “emphasised their dedication to advance the US-India strategic partnership and the Indo-Pacific Quad partnership”, a US authorities assertion after their dialog mentioned.
“The Trump administration has clearly signalled that the Indo-Pacific area is a precedence. And that’s clearly pushed by the competitors with China,” mentioned Danilowicz, the previous US diplomat.
However there’s one other nation that Trump and the US need to goal – and there, New Delhi and Washington differ.
The Iran equation
A significant storm is brewing between India and the US over Iran, mentioned Michael Kugelman, the director of the South Asia Institute on the Wilson Middle, a Washington, DC-based assume tank.
On the centre of tensions is the port of Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman, the place India has made a multimillion-dollar funding within the hopes of growing a strategically situated maritime facility. The port permits India to ship meals, help and different commodities to landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asia through Iran, bypassing Pakistan, New Delhi’s archrival.
India had secured a sanctions waiver from the US in the course of the first Trump administration for work associated to Chabahar.
However in a nationwide safety presidential memorandum that Trump signed on February 4, he requested US Secretary of State Rubio to “modify or rescind sanctions waivers, significantly people who present Iran any diploma of financial or monetary reduction, together with these associated to Iran’s Chabahar port challenge”.
“Trump’s Iran coverage may properly develop into a flashpoint within the US-India relationship and may have a deleterious affect,” Kugelman advised Al Jazeera, including that Trump’s “maximalist place in the direction of Iran” presents a fragile diplomatic scenario for India.
‘Bonhomie’ and friction
Different niggles in ties – like allegations by US prosecutors that India’s spy company tried to assassinate an American citizen, Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun; or the US indictment of billionaire Gautam Adani over bribery charges – will proceed to shadow bilateral ties, famous Kugelman.
“These points is not going to essentially come up within the fast future, or at this assembly, however they aren’t going away anytime quickly,” mentioned Kugelman. “Given Trump’s maximalist place on tariffs, he’s going to attempt to do all the pieces to incentivise international locations to carry down and cut back tariffs.”
Indian diplomats and worldwide overseas coverage specialists have mentioned Modi’s celebrated ‘bromance’ equation with Trump supplies India an edge on the desk with different international locations.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t essentially translate into “a greater deal”, mentioned Danilowicz, the previous US diplomat.
“A very good equation can get India a faster assembly or face time with Trump, not a deal,” he mentioned, including that New Delhi wants to organize to take care of frictions. “It might be a mistake for India, or any nation, to place an excessive amount of emphasis on a private relationship with Trump and neglect that there are a lot of different inputs into the US overseas policy-making course of, together with the Congress.”
