Trump, PM ready for India lovefest ‘Biggest event they’ve ever had’ – Don
A typhoon of over-the-top events will hit India on Monday as President Trump arrives for a two-day visit.
The pomp and circumstance is scheduled to start from the moment Trump lands in the western state of Gujarat. Carefully selected supporters of India’s prime minister were to cheer and hold signs along all 14 miles of the presidential motorcade’s route to a stadium rally.
The venue’s capacity of more than 100,000 makes it one of the biggest in the world.
“I hear it’s going to be a big event. Some people say the biggest event they’ve ever had in India,” Trump crowed to reporters before his Sunday flight. “That’s what the prime minister told me — this will be the biggest event they’ve ever had.”
The rally is Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s way of returning the favor for a Trump-hosted event for the South Asian leader last year in Texas.
That event was themed “Howdy, Modi.” Monday’s is billed as “Namaste, Trump.”
Following the lovefest, the president and First Lady Melania Trump are scheduled to make an evening visit to the Taj Mahal — the model for one of Trump’s infamous failed Atlantic City casinos.
In the capital New Delhi on Tuesday, Trump and Modi are expected to talk trade, though the president tried to keep expectations low.
“We may make a tremendous deal there or maybe we’ll slow it down — we’ll do it after the election,” Trump said Thursday in Las Vegas.
“I think that could happen, too. We’ll see what happens, but we’re only making deals if they’re good deals because we’re putting America first.”
Trump’s form of belligerent patriotism jibes with the hosting leader’s own desire to turn India, the world’s biggest democracy, into a
Hindu nationalist state.
Modi has been widely condemned for a recent citizenship law aimed at marginalizing Muslims, as well as for anti-Muslim violence that claimed hundreds of lives in 2002, when he was chief minister of Gujarat.
But Trump’s had almost nothing but good things to say about his Indian counterpart as the Republican Party tries to cultivate support among Indian-Americans.
“Prime Minister Modi is doing a truly exceptional job for India and for all of the Indian people,” Trump said at the September rally in Texas. “I look forward to working with you to make our nations even more prosperous than ever before.”
Behind closed doors, Trump has mockingly imitated Modi’s accent, according to The Washington Post.
A White House official told Reuters that Trump will raise religious freedom in India with Modi, though the president has largely taken a hands-off approach to human rights.