‘Friend calling’, Trump hints at India trip next year; MEA denies info

US President Donald Trump on Thursday said he could travel to India next year, emphasising that Prime Minister Narendra Modi “wants” him to visit while calling him a “great man” and a friend.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), however, declined to comment on Trump’s remarks, with spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal saying, “I do not have anything to share on that at this point. I will let you know when I have something to share.”

“He’s (PM Modi) a friend of mine, and we speak... He wants me to go there. We’ll figure that out. I’ll go. I will have a great trip there with PM Modi, he’s a great man. And I’ll be going,” Trump said at the Oval Office in response to a question. When asked if he was planning to go to India next year, Trump said, “It could be, yeah.”

India will host leaders from Australia, Japan and the United States for the Quad summit in New Delhi after the 2024 summit was held in Wilmington, Delaware. However, the dates for the summit in India are yet to be announced.

Meanwhile, President Trump once again claimed that India has stopped buying oil from Russia.

“It’s great, going good. He (PM Modi) stopped... Largely he stopped buying oil from Russia,” Trump said in response to a question on how talks with Modi and trade discussions with India are progressing.

Trump imposed 25 per cent reciprocal tariffs on India and an additional 25 per cent levies for Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil, bringing the total duties imposed on India to 50 per cent.

India had described the US action as “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable” while maintaining that its energy policy is guided by its own national interest.

In his remarks before the press, Trump also reiterated his claim that he stopped the war between India and Pakistan in May using trade.

“Of the eight wars I ended, I would say five or six were ended because of tariffs. I’ll give you an example. If you take a look at India and Pakistan, they started to fight, they are two nuclear nations... They were shooting each other. Eight planes were shot down. It was seven. Now it is eight, because the one that was sort of shot down is now abandoned. Eight planes were shot down.

“And I said, ‘Listen, if you guys are going to fight, I’m gonna put tariffs on you’. And they both went, you know, they were not happy about that. And within 24 hours, I settled the war. If I didn’t have tariffs, I wouldn’t have been able to settle that war,” Trump said.

The President also termed tariffs a “great national defence”. (With PTI inputs)