The Modi-Trump Tête-à-Tête

There is considerable speculation about the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the POTUS Donald Trump scheduled on February 13. The majority view is that Modi will go all out to woo Trump, especially after Modi’s phone conversation with Trump on January 27, congratulating him on winning the second presidency, and the White House issuing a statement saying, "The President (Donald Trump) emphasised the importance of India increasing its procurement of American-made security equipment and moving toward a fair bilateral trading relationship.” (https://www.thestrategicperspective.org/articles/guilt-pangs/).

New Delhi is engaged in hectic groundwork in preparation of the upcoming meeting of the two leaders. India has already cut tariffs on 30 items including luxury cars, bikes, machinery and solar cells to facilitate more imports from the US. It may be recalled that even during his first presidency, Trump was not happy with the tariffs on Harley Davidson motorcycles by India. In the Union Budget for FY 2025-2026, the peak import tariff has been cut from 150% to 70%, and average tariffs to below 11% from 13%, while an alternative tariff called the Agriculture Infrastructure Development Cess (AIDC), has been raised on 32 items. The AIDC is not making farmers happy. But will all this satisfy Trump who has said that tariffs on Japan are possible unless the trade balance is squared off. Despite the focus on Canada and Mexico, data reveals that the US trade deficit with India was notably higher in 2023; US trade deficit with India reached USD 45.640 million, significantly exceeding the USD 49.627 million deficit with Canada.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh held a phone conversation with US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth on February 6 to reaffirm commitment to the US-India Major Defence Partnership, enhancing operational cooperation, as well as advancing defence industrial and technological collaboration to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific. Both agreed to work together to draft a comprehensive framework on defence cooperation, aimed at structuring the bilateral cooperation for the period 2025-2035. It is quite possible that Hegseth already has this 10-year bilateral cooperation plan ready, which will be pushed through in the next 2+2 Dialogue, followed later with the America-India Defence Agreement sponsored by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio once it is approved by the US Congress.

With Trump’s emphasis on India: increasing its procurement of American-made security equipment”, different views are being expressed about what increase Trump might want. Trump’s right-hand Elon Musk, special government employee leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with an office in the White House, has said the US risks major defeat in the next war unless it urgently reforms its outdated weapons programs. He argues that excessive bureaucracy and outdated military strategies undermine national security – can India learn something from this? Speaking at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York in February, Musk emphasized the transformative impact of drones and artificial intelligence (AI) on warfare, citing the Ukraine conflict as a prime example. Musk is against the production of fighter aircraft like the F-35 but the US can hardly afford to stop exporting fighter aircraft. While the news is that India's acquisition of 110 upgraded Rafale F4 fighter jets under the MRFA program could cost USD 27 billion, exceeding the USD 20 billion budget, will Trump coax Modi to instead go for American fighter aircraft like the F-22 instead, in addition to other weapon platforms and systems?

A major question also is whether Modi will accept Musk’s Starlink cover like Japan. Modi had cancelled important meetings to meet Musk when the latter visited India. Notably, Starlink is also a contender for providing broadband services in India and has already accepted Government of India terms for India Satellite Broadband License, especially the data and storage requirements mandated; all storage within India and ensuring facilitation of data interception by intelligence agencies when required. For sure, Modi will be asked to accommodate Starlink broadband services, exclusively or shared with Jio. Security is of little concern to India’s political hierarchy considering the joint Indo-US semiconductor fab being ser up (https://www.spsmai.com/experts-speak/?id=1587&q=Indo-US-Semiconductor-Fab) coming up and our power and telecommunication sectors prey to Chinese spying and sabotage (https://www.spsmai.com/experts-speak/?id=1582&q=Chinas-Cyber-Spy-Sabotage-Network). Significantly, China has redefined the future of space technology, with its Jilin-1 02A02 satellite achieving an unprecedented data transmission speed of 100 Gbps; surpassing global competitors and outperforming even Starlink’s current technology. Interestingly, the UK has ordered ‘Apple’ to open up encrypted cloud data of all users.

While New Delhi is going all out to woo the US for facilitating a comfy Modi-Trump meet, the US is mounting more and more pressure on India to extract the maximum from this meeting. On February 6 2025 104 illegal Indian immigrants landed in Amritsar. On February 7, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said in a press conference that the US authorities have identified another 487 illegal Indian migrants, who are set to be deported soon. The morning TV news on February 9 said the US is to deport 600 illegal Indian immigrants but the newspaper headlines say “India protests mistreatment, okays 96 more deportations”.

India “protests mistreatment, okays 96 more deportations” is presumably for consumption of the audience at home because India is in no position to dictate to the US how many illegal Indians can be deported. Besides, a day earlier External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told Parliament that “restraining” deportees is not “new” and adding that women were not “cuffed”. Jaishankar, who is referred to as “waiter” by BJP member and a former member of parliament Subramanian Swamy, is better known for his skills in white-washing, as witnessed in covering up the Chinese intrusions in eastern Ladakh during 2020 and the PLA’s forward location in Depsang post the agreement to resume patrolling. 

The deportees brought to Amritsar were shackled – in both arms and legs. The question of women not being “cuffed” does not arise because the US military makes no distinction between men and women when it comes to handling criminals, as the Trump Administration perceives them to be. Landing US military aircraft at Amritsar was perhaps the coordination done by Jaishankar to showcase that all the deportees were from Punjab. However, according to former India hockey player Pargat Singh (Padma Shri and Arjuna Award winner), there were more deportees from Gujarat than from Punjab.

According to the procedure in the US, deportation of individuals from the US is to be undertaken after the court ruling is so given in each case, US citizens are surprised that this is being flouted presently, on the absence of which they can hardly be treated as “criminals”. Moreover, norms exist even for treating prisoners of war. But then Trump is king (some compare him to Idi Amin) and his word is now the law. The pressure being mounted on India is all the more conspicuous with no such deportations taking place in Bangladesh, Pakistan or Sri Lanka. A question being asked is will Trump also seek details from Modi about the ethnic cleansing of Christian tribals in Manipur over the past 29 months?  

To add to the pressure on India, Trump has cancelled the waiver on development of the Chabahar Port in Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan province, which the US had accorded in November 2008. India and Iran signed a 10-year agreement in 2022 to develop this deep-water port, which plays a crucial role in India’s regional connectivity. For India, Chabahar is the gateway to Afghanistan and Central Asia especially since Pakistan denies land access to India. India committed USD 120 million through India Ports Global Ltd (IGPL) to develop and equip this port. In addition, India offered USD 250 million to Iran to improve related infrastructure; under this agreement, India was to operate the port for 10 years while further modernizing its facilities. Trump’s move is a strategic setback for India but then Trump, in his focus to make America great again, according to his vision, doesn’t differentiate between friend and foe. 

Finally, human trafficking is rampant in India with the preparators having a free run; hardly any arrests, leave aside prosecutions. Extreme critics even accuse dance troupes sent in advance to entertain Modi during his various visits to the US. But this notwithstanding, can we ensure deportees being returned to India are accorded a semblance of dignity? Can we learn from other countries who have refused to accept deportees brought in the manner they were offloaded at Amritsar – which is a kick on the dignity of the nation? Can we learn from a small country like Colombia that sent a commercial airliner to the US to get its deportees back and the President of Colombia met them in board when they landed back (https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122138634956505626&id=61565168788405&rdid=0lfHmgGUmeeSXHpD#)? 

Strange occurrences are happening in the US, like the recent heist of 1,00,000 organic eggs, costing USD 40,000, in Pennsylvania.  But the interesting part is that despite the turmoil and even those losing jobs under the fed cut, don’t blame Trump (other than him pardoning the Capitol Hill attackers) because Trump is doing what he had been saying in his election rallies. They blame the zombie Joe Biden who was intent on running another term until he was told to give up. But by then it was too late; propping up Kamala Harris, that too an African American, when the US has never accepted a woman president, not even Hillary Clinton. Speculation is also on that if Trump does manage to deport everyone he wants to, who will do the jobs these immigrants were/are doing?

The author is an Indian Army veteran. Views expressed are personal.