TOI CORRESPONDENT FROM WASHINGTON: Amid wrinkles between India and the US on tariffs and immigration issues, PM Modi will land in a slick and slippery Washington DC on Wednesday, with snow and sleet forecast in the hours before his arrival. Just as well he will be staying at Blair House, the US Presidential guest house right across the road from White House.
Six bilateral meetings have been pencilled in from the time Modi arrives in Washington DC on Wednesday evening, culminating in a Trump-Modi meeting in the White House at 4pm Thursday, followed by a private dinner with the US president later in the evening. The two leaders are also expected to talk to the media in the Oval Office either before or after the meeting.
Indicative of the sidelining of the legislative wing in what is fast turning out to be an imperial presidency, there is no engagement at US Congress, with sources pointing to the short 36-hour visit as the primary reason for it. The sources also made light of the differences on tariffs and immigration, amid apprehensions about off-the-cuff remarks by Trump, saying larger strategic considerations would trump such issues.
Modi is the fourth foreign leader to meet Trump in the White House in less than a month after he took office for a second term, an unprecedented flurry of activity atypical of past US presidents. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu was the first to visit, followed by Japan’s Shigeru Ishiba last week. On Tuesday, Jordan’s King Abdullah II rushed to the White House after Trump threatened to cut off aid if Amman didn’t accommodate Palestinians from Gaza before its proposed US rebuilding.
There are no such exigencies in US-India ties, although there will be pressure on New Delhi on lowering tariffs and buying more US products to bridge the trade deficit between the two countries. The Trump dispensation has also opened a new front that could potentially affect India, with attacks on the Brics group of countries for ostensibly trying to undermine the US dollar as the global reserve currency, a suggestion New Delhi has refuted.