New Delhi, India – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in Washington late Wednesday evening and is expected to meet US President Donald Trump Thursday in the White House.
While the two leaders often have described themselves as friends In the past, and have even organized joint political rallies, Modi’s visit arrives at a time when the relationship is tested by tariff threats and Trump’s deportation realities.
“I can’t wait to meet my friend, President Trump,” said Modi in a starting message, adding that he has a “very warm memory to work together in [Trump’s] first term ”.
Trump had announced Modi’s visit to the United States after their telephone conversation on January 27, a week after being sworn in office for his second term. After their call, Trump also said that he thought that Modify would do “what is good” undeniable undenial migrants in the United States.
But to please Trump and the Indian public will not be easy for Modi.
Here is what is at stake for India and what Modi could bring with him to meet Trump to try to appease the American president.
What’s at stake for India?
The United States is the largest export destination in India and ranks among its two main business partners in several sectors, including technology, trade, defense and energy. The bidirectional trade between the United States and India affected a summit of $ 118 billion in 2023-24.
Bilateral links have also been strengthened in the past three decades, as the United States has become more and more focused on the fight against the rise of a shared rival – China.
But despite this convergence, Trump clearly indicated – as he had done with several American allies – that he also has profound differences with India.
During his campaign for the 2024 elections, Trump described India as “very large aggressor” of trade and threatened. Since his elected official, he has pushed New Delhi to buy more security equipment made in the United States to reduce imbalance in their profession. In 2024, the commercial surplus was $ 45.6 billion in favor of India, according to US government data.
Trump’s re-election campaign also highlighted undocumented immigration and illegal regulations in the United States. In 2022, India ranked third, after Mexico and Salvador, among countries with the greatest number of undocumented immigrants – 725,000 – living in the country.
And Wednesday of last week, an American military plane approached a city in northern India, carrying 104 Indian deportees, hand and legs handcuffed in Amritsar. In the biggest trip undertaken by an American military plane, the “ill -treatment” of the deportees caused a major outrageincluding opposition manifestations, in India.
“India has always celebrated the success of the Indians in the United States, which means that Indian Americans have been a very visible community in India’s conscience,” said Swaran Singh, professor at the Center for International Policy at Jawaharlal de Delhi de Delhi University. The Indian foreign policy also, under Modi, particularly celebrated the non-resident Indians, he said. “These dynamics are ill -treatment of the Indian deportees a volatile and flammable problem in bilateral links,” said Singh.
Jon Danilowicz, a retired diplomat who served in the American State Department, said that Modi’s meeting with Trump “is mainly an opportunity for the Indian Prime Minister to present his side of history to assert the case from New Delhi “.
But what could Modi manage the Trump threat to prices and expulsion?
What is Modi’s probable match plan on the deportation?
Singh noted the official degree in the Indian government in indignation concerning the images of citizens returning from the United States to the headlines.
He suggested that it was a deliberate decision.
“Trump has a method in his madness. He uses fanciful declarations to create maximum pressure, “said Singh. “It is not a good sense to confront it publicly [on contentious issues]. “”
Instead, after an outcry in Parliament, the Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs, S Jaishankar, said that the use of constraints was part of the United States expulsion policy, adding that “it is Obligation of all countries to resume their nationals if they are found to live illegally abroad ”.
“We should be put on a strong repression on the illegal migration industry while taking measures to facilitate visas for legitimate travelers,” said Jaishankar.
How could Moda counter Trump on prices?
Trump promised to announce other prices later this week, and although he did not specify which countries or sectors could be targeted, India should be assigned.
On Wednesday, the White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt said that she expected these reciprocal prices – against countries that, according to Trump are imposed by unfair restrictions on American imports – be announced before that the American president does not meet Modi.
Trump has already imposed a tariff of 10% on all Chinese imports in addition to existing prices and has introduced a 25% rate on all imports of steel and aluminum.
But when Modi meets Trump, the Indian Prime Minister could indicate recent unilateral measures that India has taken to reduce the obstacles to the entry for American goods, analysts say.
Traditionally, India, an emerging economy, has had high prices in place for several imported products which it feared to harm its inner sector and its agricultural sector. However, in its last budget, announced on February 1, the Modi government reduced the prices and avoided any protectionist announcement.
Such steps could “preempt an action by the US administration,” said Danilowicz.
India, after all, knows the risks of a tariff war with the United States. In 2018, Trump had made prices of 25% out of $ 761 million in steel and $ 10% on $ 382 million aluminum imported from India, which retaliated by adding customs duties to at least 28 American products. After years of trade tensions, in 2023, a resolution was announced during a Modi visit to Washington.
Modify will want to avoid a rehearsal.
“India has so far escaped the heat of the direct price by the new Trump administration and it is a positive sign,” said Biswajit Dhar, a distinguished professor at the Social Development Council in New Delhi.
Dhar, an international trade expert, told Al Jazeera that Modi had to use this meeting “to convince Trump that India plays a fair game vis-à-vis trade and, therefore, India should be treated differently “.
“If China is slapped with these types of prices, then the same thing should not happen to India,” said Dhar, adding that the “personalized background” to the duo’s relationship should allow the space of Welcome these discussions. “At least India would not like it to be matraquked with China.”
After all, China – or rather the shared suspicion of Beijing plans for the Asia -Pacific region – is the largest glue that maintains the India -Us together relationship.
“Commitment to Quad”
Modi is only the fourth world leader to meet Trump since his re-election, after Israel, Jordan and Japan, his ally in Asia-Pacific. Experts in foreign policy have told Al Jazeera that the invitation of the term at the start of Trump’s mandate shows how the US President considers links to India.
China is a large part.
One day after Trump was sworn in as 47th American president, his new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, held a meeting with his colleagues foreign ministers from India, Australia and Japan. The four nations – with a collective population of nearly two billion people and representing more than a third of the world’s gross interior products (GDP) – form the Quad, a strategic forum focused on the Asia -Pacific region.
The Modi-Trump telephone call on January 27, “also underlined their commitment to advance the American strategic partnership of India and the Indo-Pacific Quad partnership,” said a statement from the United States government after their conversation.
“The Trump administration has clearly indicated that the Indo-Pacific Region is a priority. And this is clearly motivated by competition with China, “said Danilowicz, the former American diplomat.
But there is another country than Trump and the United States want to target – and there, New Delhi and Washington differ.
Iran equation
A major storm is preparing between India and the United States on Iran, said Michael Kugelman, director of the Southern Asian Institute at Wilson Center, a Washington, DC reflection group.
In the center of the tensions is the port of Chabahar On the Gulf of Oman, where India has made a several million dollars investment in the hope of developing a strategically located maritime installation. The port allows India to send food, help and other basic products to Afghanistan without coastal and central Asia via Iran, bypassing Pakistan, archiving of New Delhi.
India had renounced the United States sanctions in the first Trump administration for work-related work.
But in a presidential memorandum of national security that Trump signed on February 4, he asked the US Secretary of State Rubio to “modify or cancel the derogations to sanctions, in particular those which provide Iran with all degree of rescue economic or financial, including those related to the Iranian Chabahar port project from Chabahar ”.
“Trump’s Iranian policy may well become a flash point in the American-Indian relationship and can have a deleterious impact,” Kugelman told Al Jazeera, adding that Trump’s “maximalist position” presents a delicate diplomatic situation for India.
‘Bonhomie’ and friction
Other bad guys in ties – such as the allegations of American prosecutors whom the espionage agency of India tried to assassinate an American citizen, a SIKH separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun; or the American accusation act of the billionaire Gautam Adani for corruption charges – will continue to make bilateral shadow links, noted Kugelman.
“These problems will not necessarily arise in the immediate future, or at this meeting, but they will not disappear anytime soon,” said Kugelman. “Given Trump’s maximum position on prices, he will try to do everything to encourage countries to reduce and reduce prices.”
Indian diplomats and international experts in foreign policy said that Modi’s “Bromance” equation with Trump offered India an advantage on the table with other countries.
However, this is not necessarily reflected in “a better deal,” said Danilowicz, the former American diplomat.
“A good equation can make India a faster meeting or face a time with Trump, not an agreement,” he said, adding that New Delhi must prepare to face friction . “It would be an error for India, or any country, to emphasize a personal relationship with Trump and to neglect that there are many other contributions in the United States foreign policy process , including Congress. “
