Moody hopes to keep the White House visit in India outside Trump’s hair

While he was preparing to go to Washington this week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke about building on the warm relationships he participated with President Trump during his first term at the White House.

But Mr. Trump can be a volatile friend. So when Mr. Modi meets him on Thursday, he is expected to carry offers designed to reduce emerging friction points and maintain India and India’s growing bonds.

One of the main focus is trade. Indian officials said that local Companies in talks To increase the purchase of US energy supplies, especially LNG. The two leaders are also expected to discuss expanded spending on US defense equipment and announce new deals.

In addition, Mr. Modi can refer to the recent discounts in Indian definitions on high-end American motorcycles-Harley Davids-and the voting of homework decreased on goods such as bourbon and Baqan, which are mainly produced in the Republican states.

These moves, although they are largely symbolic in some cases, aim to waste Mr. Trump’s irritation about the American trade deficit with India and high import duties that make India a difficult market to enter.

On another great source of tension, illegal immigration, Mr. Modi has already made concessions. India represents the largest group of illegal immigrants to the United States outside Latin America. The Indian government has made clear that it will cooperate with Mr. Trump’s engine for deportation, even because it caused Headache Mr. Modi last week.

The arrival of 100 bound and handcuffed Indians on a US military plane, a few days before going to Washington, who left his government scrambling to play in the episode and contains a local violent reaction.

India is strongly aware that trade and immigration issues are a potential double sensation in Mr. Trump’s world of preoccupation.

So far, while Mr. Trump threatened even allies close to the punitive definitions of these issues, India has managed to stay away from his hair. If any country can follow the return of Hurricane Trump to power, India believes it is.

The two countries, the world’s largest democracies, grew more economically and geographically, as they see a common threat in China increasingly.

Mr. Modi will be the fourth of the leader of the world who has gathered with Mr. Trump since he took office about three weeks ago, after a A visit to the White House by the Japanese Prime Minister He speaks with Israeli and Jordanian leaders about the war in the Middle East.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Modi shared many common denominators. Both are powerful leaders with a large -handed view of foreign policy, with a popular feeling of what plays well with the base.

Although Mr. Modi showed a willingness to communicate with Mr. Trump’s copies of the muscles, he works to get the relationship that India needs of the relationship. This is especially true with Mr. Trump’s push to back down from a set of legal measures during the Biden era.

India also hopes to move from US legal procedures related to the Indian government An assassination plot An American citizen on the soil of the United States.

Even during the Biden administration, officials have made pain to deal with the assassination issue to a large extent, which is a sign of the importance of commercial and defensive countries.

The relationship enjoyed the support of the two parties in Washington, including between the legislators who are now in the internal circle of Mr. Trump and they look at India as important in exchanging the burden of containing China.

In addition to the “very close relationship” between Mr. Trump and Mr. Modi, Vikram Missri, Indian Foreign Minister, included many areas of “exciting rapprochement” between the two countries.

Mr. Missri pointed to the expansion of technological communications and trade, as well as joint efforts on combating terrorism and security in the Indian Pacific region. It also highlighted the growing Indian diaspora in the United States, as well as large numbers of Indian students studying there.

An important area of ​​alignment that can help both leaders in demanding victories is defense cooperation, especially weapons spending.

India is the largest importer of military weapons in the world, representing approximately 10 percent of the global total, according to the Institute of Peace Research in Stockholm.

For decades, cheap and reliable Russian equipment formed the largest part of India’s defensive purchases. American equipment has been expensive and far from hand due to doubts in the United States long ago about India’s relations with Russia.

The US defense sales of India are now approaching $ 25 billion annually, an increase of almost anything in 2008. With India is expected to spend more than 200 billion dollars over the next decade to update its army, according to Congress Research service, purchases from the United States It is likely to grow only.

The White House said in a statement that when Mr. Modi spoke with Mr. Trump on the phone shortly after his inauguration last month, “The President stressed the importance of increasing the purchase of US -made security equipment.”

However, India is trying to bypass the simple purchases of American equipment so that deals generate jobs that affect their need and industrial ability at home.

“If India will become a clear security provider in this part of the world, you must build capabilities as well,” said Ashok Malik, President of India in the Asia Group and former Foreign Policy Adviser to the Modi government.

Some of the largest deals in recent years have made India to develop and produce equipment. In 2023, General Electric announced that it would produce jet engines in India. In its last weeks, the Biden Administration also announced that India will become the “first global product” of combat vehicles in Stryker.

The concrete steps on these deals can be, as well as the final touches on other purchases – including patrols and aircraft survey of the Indian Navy – among the ads that follow the meeting of Mr. Modi with Mr. Trump.

“All options are under discussion,” said Sanjif Kumar, the Minister of Defense Production in India. “We definitely want to accelerate transactions with the United States.”

Alex Timely The reports contributed.