Indian Prime Minister Modi hails US-India ‘mega partnership’ in Trump meeting
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has lauded a “mega partnership” with the United States, following an agreement with US President Donald Trump for India to increase imports of American oil and gas.
Modi’s two-day visit coincides with Trump’s recent directive for all US trading partners, including India, to face broad reciprocal tariffs.
Although both leaders commended each other’s leadership, Trump criticized India for imposing some of the world’s highest trade tariffs, describing them as a “big problem.”
In an effort to ease potential trade tensions, Modi expressed willingness to lower tariffs on US goods, repatriate undocumented Indian nationals, and consider purchasing military fighter jets from the United States.
At a joint news conference, Modi made several references to Trump’s “make America great again” slogan, including his own spin to it: “It’s Make India Great Again – Miga,” Modi said.
“Maga plus Miga…[is a] Mega partnership for prosperity”.
Trump also added that India would be “purchasing a lot of our oil and gas” in an effort to close the trade deficit between both countries.
“They need it. And we have it,” Trump said.
With India already being reliant on imported oil, which it sources from multiple countries, the energy deal with the US “presents a relatively low hanging fruit for both parties”, Radhika Rao, a senior economist at Singapore’s DBS bank told the BBC.
“The US is the largest export market for India’s goods and services, which underscores the administration’s willingness to pre-emptively smoothen trade relations and offer concessions to narrow the bilateral trade deficit that the US runs with India,” she said.
However, “India’s challenge will be to balance its own trade deficit because US oil and gas might be more expensive due to a stronger dollar,” Amitendu Palit, senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Institute of South Asian Studies said.
“Reciprocal tariffs are likely to follow on India too at some stage. Hopefully for India, they won’t turn out to be larger than expected,” said Dr Palit.
Trump also added that the US would increase sales of military hardware to India by millions of dollars, eventually supplying Delhi with F-35 fighter jets.
The two also spoke about immigration – another pain point in bilateral relations – with Trump announcing that the US would extradite a man who allegedly plotted 2008 Mumbai terror attack to “face justice in India”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed gratitude to President Donald Trump for facilitating the extradition process and pledged to accept the repatriation of Indian nationals residing illegally in the United States.
Last week, the US deported 104 Indians accused of being undocumented immigrants, transporting them on a military plane. A video surfaced showing the deportees in shackles. A second flight is expected to arrive in India on Saturday.
Indians represent one of the largest groups of unauthorized immigrants in the US and hold the majority of H-1B visas—a program temporarily banned by Trump during his first term, now facing renewed scrutiny.
Just before meeting Modi, Trump instructed his advisers to calculate broad new tariffs on global trading partners, warning they could take effect as early as April 1.
While acknowledging the risks of the tariff policy, Trump argued it would bolster American manufacturing and lead to a surge in job creation. Speaking to reporters, he remarked, “Our allies are worse than our enemies” when it comes to import taxes.
“We had a very unfair system to us,” the Republican president said before meeting Modi. “Everybody took advantage of the United States.”
The White House also issued a news release that fired a trade shot across the bows of India and other countries.
The document noted that the average US tariff on agricultural goods was 5% for countries to which Washington had granted most favoured nation (MFN) status.
“But India’s average applied MFN tariff is 39%,” the White House fact sheet said.
“India also charges a 100% tariff on US motorcycles, while we only charge a 2.4% tariff on Indian motorcycles.”
President Donald Trump has imposed an additional 10% tariff on imports from China, citing the country’s role in producing fentanyl, a powerful opioid contributing to the US overdose crisis.
He has also prepared tariffs targeting Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading partners, which could be implemented in March following a 30-day suspension.
Earlier this week, Trump eliminated exemptions from his 2018 tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.