After weeks of ups and downs between India and US relations, the President of the US, Mr. Donald Trump, has said that India and the US will always share a special relationship and that the Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Modi, is his friend. During an address in the Oval Office on Friday, the president said that Mr. Modi is a great leader and that the two share a special bond, but he was not happy with India’s stance at present. He further said that though the two countries have a low phase of relations, their bond is always strong.
The statement was made in response to a question related to India-US relations, which, as per experts, is at its worst phase in the last two decades. Trump remarked that he was not happy with India’s decision to buy oil from Russia. Talking about Prime Minister Modi, he said that he was in the US a few months back, and they continue to be friends. This was in response to Trump’s social media post, where he expressed his concerns about India and Russia drifting away by “deepest, darkest China”. The Prime Minister of India visited China on the eve of the 25th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
Talking about trade talks with other countries, he said that though the talks are proceeding in a good direction with every country, with the European Union, things are not good due to the problems faced by Google and other US-based tech firms. Before Trump changed his tone towards India, Peter Navarro, who is a member of Trump’s administration, accused India to be financing the Russia-Ukraine war, and also claimed that the peaceful resolution of the war went through New Delhi, in the backdrop of how tariffs would impact India negatively.
Experts believe that though the change in Trump’s tone is a good start at easing ties with India, it might be a long way before things get back to normal. As of now, the President has retracted from his earlier remarks that they had lost India to China, saying that India is not yet lost to China in the end. The Indian Prime Minister has also responded immediately to the social media posts, thanking the President for understanding and appreciating the ties between the two countries.
