Trump has a change of heart in Osaka

NEW DELHI: US President Donald Trump told Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday that “Indo-US ties have never been better than this” and pledged “very big” trade deals in manufacturing and 5G between the two countries. That appeared to mark a complete turnabout from his fulminations against India’s “high tariffs” on Thursday. The two leaders,who met on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Osaka, have directed their officials to address irritants over trade.Trump also congratulated Modi on his sweeping election victory. “You did indeed have a landslide election and that was a great election. You have done a great job in pulling everyone together. Many factions were fighting, I remember when you first took over and we were talking, they were fighting with each other and now they are loving you,” Trump said. “I think it is a fantastic tribute to you and your abilities. Thank you for the relationship and the friendship,” he said.The US president also told Modi that “it’s been a lot of fun dealing with you”, adding that major deals were in the offing.“I think we will have something big to announce — very big trade deals,” Trump said. “We will have very big things with India in terms of trade, in terms of manufacturing, in terms of manufacturing 5G. We had some good talks. I think you will hear some very productive elements come out.”The US wants India to shut out Chinese company Huawei over security concerns, just as the South Asian nation is about to start 5G trials. Huawei is a leader in the technology.Trump and Modi were holding their first standalone bilateral meeting since November 2017.They said that trade ministers of both countries would meet at an early date and sort out contentious issues relating to market access, trade barriers and trade imbalance.“The relationship with India I don’t believe has ever been better than this,” Trump said as the meeting began. “India is doing very well as a country. We are doing very well as a country.”Foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale later told reporters there were four issues on the table — Iran, 5G, trade and defence relations. On Iran, the two sides agreed to remain in touch to ensure that the situation in the region remained stable, Gokhale said.Besides issues regarding peace and stability in the region, Modi outlined India’s energy concerns and said although Iran supplied as much as 11% of its needs, it had reduced oil imports from the West Asian country even though this hurt the economy.Modi told Trump that a large number of Indians reside in the region and it had economic interests as well. “Therefore, it’s in India’s fundamental interests to have peace and stability in the region,” Gokhale said.The PM also recalled that the country had despatched two naval ships for the protection of Indian-flagged vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz, a point which Trump appreciated. He hoped that oil prices would remain stable and that the US was doing its best to ensure this. On 5G, Modi told Trump that it was a new area in communications that provided an opportunity for collaboration between India and the US.“The Prime Minister outlined that we are going to be a billion users of this technology and, in that sense, India is the secondlargest market in the world. The way India moves, whatever choices India makes essentially determine the way the global trend will go,” Gokhale said, adding that Modi pointed out the need to collaborate “to see how we can leverage this.”“The billion Indian users and India’s capacity in technology development and startups and design and Silicon Valley and its role in development of 5G technology for mutual benefit” were discussed, Gokhale said.Modi also highlighted the Make in India programme in this context.Trump is understood to have welcomed the idea and said relevant ministers of the two countries would meet to look at opportunities that the businesses of both sides can leverage and collaborate on. The Prime Minister, according to the foreign secretary, referred to the withdrawal of special export privileges accorded by the US to India and the retaliatory step taken by India to impose duties on 28 items the US exported to India as “something that had already happened and that we should now look forward and see how we can resolve some of the issues”.Gokhale said it was a “very productive discussion” and a “very open discussion” and “we will take this forward.” The discussion on defence relations was, however, cut short due to the two leaders having other engagements, the foreign secretary added.The two leaders exchanged perspectives on progress in the strategic partnership and developing new ideas to bring it to the next level, persons familiar with the matter told ET. The leaders acknowledged the “unprecedented breadth and depth of bilateral ties,” including economic matters, trade, energy, defence, security, counterterrorism and space, said one of the persons. “The leaders affirmed that, as responsible democracies, a close partnership between the US and India is central to global peace and stability,” said another person.“They reiterated their commitment to provide strong leadership to address global challenges and build prosperity for their citizens in the decades to come.”

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/31Zlmmd