In headlines recently has been Trump’s trip to India. As a growing world power, not only economically and militarily but politically, the relationship the United States has with them becomes more and more important. On Trump’s recent trip to India, he signed defense, energy, and telecoms deals but failed to reach a prospective trade accord. Though the President called his visit “very productive,” one of the primary reasons for this visit was the passing was one on trade. The United States is one of India’s largest trade partners. Trump and Modi both hope to heal the economic wounds of tariffs between the two countries.
Trump’s visit was in the midst of the deadliest religious violence in the capital for decades. When asked about it Trump followed his primary foreign policy ideal of isolationism when he said that the problem was “up to India” to handle. Trump said he trusted Modi that India protects the religious freedoms of his people. In this aforementioned eruption of religious violence, ten people have been killed and about 150 injured in protests fighting a new citizenship law which protesters say discriminate against Muslims. Modi, who leads a Hindu nationalist government, vehemently rejects this assertion stating that the law only seeks to “give amnesty to persecuted minorities.”
One of the big reasons for Trump’s visit is that Indian Prime Minister Modi desperately needed some decent press after being the target of media attacks due to his decision to remove Kashmir’s autonomy and his new citizenship law. One of the reasons that 100 thousand Indians were waiting to meet Trump in Dehli was his harsh rhetoric on Pakistan, India’s rival. The desire for good optics was met as Trump praised India for their popular Bollywood films and talking about cricket. Of the deals, that Trump signed one of the most immediately visible ones is India buying 3 billion dollars worth of military equipment from the United States. Overall, both leaders praised one another and it helped ease domestic tensions in India (to some degree) and also provided Trump with good press over in the US. Both leaders and countries will clearly benefit from a closer relationship. Though a closer relationship with a growing power is a very positive thing for the United States, this closer stance between those two countries my cost the US an ally in Pakistan.