Trump Says He Will Meet Another Foreign Leader Next Week—Indian Prime Minister Modi
by Siladitya Ray · ForbesTopline
Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday he will meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he visits the U.S. next week, adding to a growing list of foreign leaders Trump has met since becoming the Republican presidential nominee this year.
Key Facts
Speaking at a town hall in Flint, Michigan—his first public event since Sunday's assassination attempt—Trump said Modi is “coming to meet me next week,” and referred to the Indian leader as “fantastic.”
Trump, however, did not provide any details about when and where the meeting will take place.
While praising Modi, the former president was critical of India, calling it a “very big abuser” on trade—reiterating his earlier criticism of India’s high tariffs on some U.S. imports.
Modi is traveling to the U.S. next week to participate in a summit of the so-called Quad group of nations—which includes the U.S., India, Japan and Australia—in Wilmington, Delaware.
The official itinerary of Modi’s trip released by the Indian Foreign Ministry doesn’t mention his meeting with Trump.
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What Other Foreign Leaders Have Met Trump This Year?
If the meeting takes place next week, Modi will be the latest in a string of foreign leaders who have met with Trump since he became the GOP’s presidential candidate. In April, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida in an attempt to persuade him to back additional military aid for Ukraine. At the time, the British Foreign Office said it was “standard practice for ministers to meet opposition candidates as part of their routine international engagement”. A few weeks later, Polish President Andrzej Duda met Trump in New York. Duda, who had once proposed renaming a military base in his country to “Fort Trump”, was praised by the former president, who said he was doing a “fantastic job” and “he’s my friend.” In July, Trump hosted Hungary’s far-right leader Viktor Orban—who appeared to endorse his candidacy—at Mar-a-Lago. During last week’s presidential debate, Trump named Orban as one of the foreign leaders who respects him, in response to Vice President Harris’ jibe that world leaders are “laughing” at the former president. Later in July, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—whose relationship with Trump had soured after he congratulated Biden in 2020 over his election win—met with Trump in Mar-a-Lago.
Tangent
Trump, who previously called India the “king of tariffs”, outlined his own plan to use tariffs on imports from countries like China and India, saying: “So we're going to do a reciprocal trade. If anybody charges us 10 cents, if they charge us $2, if they charge us 100% or 250, we charge them the same thing. And what's going to happen? Everything's going to disappear, and we're going to end up having free trade again. And if it doesn't disappear, we're going to take in a lot of money.” Economic experts, however, have warned that across-the-board tariffs will end up raising prices for American customers and trigger inflation.
Further Reading
Trump Mocks Biden’s Press Conference On Truth Social—And Touts Meeting With Orbán (Forbes)