Washington, Jan 28 (IANS) A White House visit for Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the range of issues that he and President Donald Trump discussed on a phone call.
The White House said in a readout that they also discussed security in the Indo-Pacific, West Asia and Europe, and the Quad (a grouping India and the US form with Japan and Australia) during the phone conversation on Monday.
The readout also said Trump emphasized the need for India to buy more security equipment from the US and strive towards a fair bilateral trading relationship.
PM Modi had earlier said in a post on X he had spoken to “dear friend President @realDonaldTrump @POTUS.”
“Congratulated him on his historic second term, " he said further and added, “We are committed to a mutually beneficial and trusted partnership. We will work together for the welfare of our people and towards global peace, prosperity, and security.”
The White House said a few hours later that President Trump and Prime Minister Modi held “a productive call”.
“The two leaders discussed expanding and deepening cooperation. They also discussed a range of regional issues, including security in the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East, and Europe. The President emphasized the importance of India increasing its procurement of American-made security equipment and moving toward a fair bilateral trading relationship.”
The readout added: “The leaders discussed plans for Prime Minister Modi to visit the White House, underscoring the strength of the friendship and strategic ties between our nations. Both leaders emphasized their commitment to advance the U.S.-India strategic partnership and the Indo-Pacific Quad partnership, with India hosting Quad Leaders for the first time later this year.”
There have been reports of officials of the two countries discussing a White House visit for PM Modi in February but there have been no announcements thus far. The Monday readout does indicate a visit is in the offing but gave no details.
The two leaders will meet personally sometime this year, most certainly when President Trump travels to India for a summit of the Quad countries. This was the second phone conversation between the two leaders after President Trump’s re-election; the first took place just after Trump won the election in November 2024.
The two leaders have shared a close personal relationship going back to President Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021. The US president jointly addressed a rally hosted for Prime Minister Modi in Houston in 2019 called the “Howdy Modi” rally and then he travelled to India in February 2020 for a “Namaste Trump “ in Prime Minister Modi’s home state Gujarat.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar represented the Prime Minister at Trump’s inauguration last week and attended all related events, even a prayer service where guests included the Trump family, cabinet members and the US President allies in the tech world, such as Elon Musk of Tesla, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sundar Pichai of Google. Jaishankar also became Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s first foreign guest for a bilateral at the State Department, following a meeting of the Quad foreign ministers, along with Australia’s Penny Wong and Japan’s Iwaya Takeshi.