US President Donald Trump has no immediate plans to visit India. He was scheduled to attend the Quad summit in India later this year, according to an analysis published online by the New York Times on Saturday.
The New York Times analysis is titled ‘The Nobel Prize and a Bitter Phone Call: How the Trump-Modi Relationship Unraveled’.
The analysis, citing officials familiar with Trump’s itinerary, said, “Trump told Modi (in a June 17 phone call) that he would come to India later this year to attend the Quad summit. But that plan for Trump to visit India in the fall is no longer in place.”
US or Indian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the New York Times’ claim.
The Trump administration had organized a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Quad countries the day after taking office for the second term in January this year. It was at that meeting that the decision to hold the Quad summit in India later this year was finalized.
But relations between Washington and New Delhi have deteriorated in the past few months. This analysis by the New York Times details how the relationship between Trump and Modi has deteriorated.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that he mediated to end the four-day conflict between India and Pakistan in May. Pakistan has acknowledged Trump’s mediation, but India has denied it. Despite this, Trump repeated that claim in a phone call with Modi on June 17. The New York Times claims that this caused Modi to lose patience.
Before this phone call, Modi and Trump were supposed to meet on the sidelines of the G-7 summit held in Canada that month. But their pre-scheduled meeting did not take place because Trump returned home early. They spoke on June 17 because this was not a planned meeting. But the 35-minute call soured relations between the two leaders instead of improving them.
But the Trump administration’s additional 50 percent tariff on Indian goods, which went into effect last Thursday, has also played a major role in the sour relations between Washington and New Delhi.
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