Trump, Modi swap disputes for spectacle

Trade friction to take backseat amid hero’s welcome, writes Jordan Fabian

President Donald Trump anticipates a hero’s welcome in India today, but the glitzy events filling his two-day visit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi will paper over growing trade frictions.

The visit is intended to strengthen the personal relationship between Mr Trump and Mr Modi, a fellow nationalist whose country is regarded by the US as an important regional counterweight against China. And for Mr Modi, the visit may distract from controversies over a new citizenship law that his critics say discriminates against Muslims, as well as a souring domestic economy.

Mr Trump, with his re-election campaign in top gear, has sought out large, friendly crowds at football games, professional fights and the biggest auto race in America to ensure he’s never far from the minds of American voters.

Mr Modi plans to provide Mr Trump a similar spectacle today in Ahmedabad in the prime minister’s home state of Gujarat. Mr Trump says the Indian leader has promised that millions of people will line 22 kilometres of roads between the airport and a new, 110,000seat cricket stadium where both leaders will speak.

The event is billed as “Namaste Trump” and is to be followed by a presidential visit to the Taj Mahal in Agra before official meetings tomorrow.

“The visit is a low-risk and characteristically showy distraction from domestic controversies” for the populist leaders, Ian Hall, professor at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, and author of the 2019 book Modi and the Reinvention of Indian Foreign Policy, said via email.

Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said last week that “tens of thousands” of onlookers and artists showcasing performing arts from different states and territories are expected to greet the president in Ahmedabad.

Mr Trump predicted that the crowds in India will make his domestic campaign rallies, typically attended by 10,000 to 20,000 people, “look like peanuts from now on”.

The president’s visit might boost his appeal among Indian American voters, an emerging voting bloc in the US that has traditionally backed Democrats. Mr Trump compared Mr Modi to Elvis Presley last year after “Howdy Modi”, a Houston event arranged for the prime minister’s visit that drew about 50,000 Indian Americans.

“Politically I’m sure there’s at least a modest dividend to be achieved on that,” Richard M Rossow, an India expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, told reporters at a briefing.

But India’s red-carpet treatment of Mr Trump, which includes the construction of a 500-metre-long wall to hide a slum from view along Mr Trump’s motorcade route, as well as a state dinner, belies a simmering trade dispute.

While their security and political partnership remains close, the US and India have slapped retaliatory tariffs on each others’ imports.

Officials have tried to hammer out a modest trade deal opening up India to US agricultural products and medical devices in return for the restoration of preferential export status that Mr Trump stripped from India in 2019.

Chances a deal would be announced soon appeared to dim when US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer scrapped a planned visit to India, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

“We’re going to India, and we may make a tremendous deal there, or maybe we’ll slow it down. We’ll do it after the election,” Mr Trump said at an event on Thursday in Las Vegas.

Top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Friday said he doesn’t expect “a big trade component in this visit”, and called on India to open its markets to direct foreign investment and the “normal” trading of goods and services.

“I don’t expect any details or much progress at all,” Mr Kudlow said on Fox News.

Mr Rossow said that Mr Trump and Mr Modi may announce an agreement on a few narrow trade issues. That could include a reduction of Indian tariffs on Harley-Davidson Inc motorcycles, a US company Mr Trump has championed.

The leaders are also expected to deepen their nations’ defence ties, with the possible announcement of India’s US$2.6 billion (82 billion baht) purchase of Lockheed Martin Corp. naval helicopters. The State Department has also approved a potential sale to India of $1.8 billion in arms, including airdefence radars and missiles, rifles and other equipment, the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency announced in a statement.

‘‘ We’re going to India, and we may make a tremendous deal there, or maybe we’ll slow it down. DONALD TRUMP

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES