Modi May Aim Fine Balance in Meeting with ‘Deal Maker’ Trump

US President Donald Trump & India PM Narendra Modi (Image credit X.com, File)
India to Not Yield Much to Trump tariff Threat: Expert
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, February 4: A fine adjustment on part of India preceded report of Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelling to Washington to Meet US President Donald Trump. Union Budget gave concessions to US imports while India agreed to take back “irregular immigrants”.
The India-US trade is booming and it is likely to touch $300 billion in 2026-27, said a report by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI). At the same time, the Indian companies are also aggressively investing in the US.
A CII study in April 2023 stated that as many as 163 Indian firms invested over $40 billion in the US. They added 425,000 direct jobs.
Trump Administration Wants Ambitious Ties with India: Jaishankar
Besides, Indian airlines have placed orders at a major scale in the last two years from Boeing, the American airline manufacturer. Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, had specially talked about the Indian private airlines order book for the American aviation industry.
Strategic analyst Dov S. Zakheim wrote in The Hill that “India is already sensitive to Trump’s concerns about illegal immigration and is planning to repatriate some 18,000 of its citizens who entered the U.S. illegally”. Reports said that the US has already flew a military plane to transport the “irregular immigrants to India”.
“India’s decision to do so may also be due to its worries that the U.S. will cut back on the number of H-1B visas it issues each year. Indian citizens hold 70 per cent of these visas,” added Zakheim, who is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Jenny Leonard wrote for Bloomberg, saying that “India’s latest accommodation (for the US) came on Saturday, when Modi’s government unveiled the first-ever overhaul to its tariff regime”. Union Minister for Finance Nirmala Sitharaman in the Budget announced several measures to cut import duties.
“The tariff reforms included sweeping cuts to duties on imports from textiles to motorcycles. It follows New Delhi’s pledge to accept thousands of unlawful migrants from the US, and maintain the US dollar as its trading currency,” claimed Leonard.
Incidentally, Trump inauguration had followed up with a Quad meeting in which India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar established contact with his American counterpart Marco Rubio. Jaishankar on several occasions claimed that India and the US ties deepened during Trump’s first tenure.
Jaishankar counts Quad gaining attention from Trump along with the unveiling of the I2U2 (Israel, India, the US, and the United Emirates) grouping. Both the geopolitical groupings are likely to gain more attention in Trump’s second tenure.
Trump, indeed, in his telephonic conversation with Modi had stressed that India should buy more defence goods from the US. “The Modi-Trump relationship will therefore remain cordial, even friendly, and the president may get some of what he wants from the Indian leader, as he has already obtained with regard to immigration. But he is unlikely to get all of what he wants,” added Zakheim.
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