After Modi and Trump met in Evian-les-Bains, New Delhi has responded with guarded optimism, while Washington has resorted to lavishing praise on Modi. “Relationships naturally go through ups and downs,” India’s foreign secretary Vikram Misri responded when an Indian journalist asked him in Paris whether India-US ties were back on track after the Modi-Tump meeting.
“Various developments continue to take place from time to time, and the leaders and diplomats of both countries continue to deal with those developments and manage those fluctuations,” Misri said alluding to New Delhi and Washington’s frayed ties, including over the killing of three Indian sailors by the US military in West Asia.
During his intervention at one of the Group of Seven (G7) Summit’s ‘outreach sessions’ on Tuesday evening, with Trump sitting next to him, Modi had flagged the paucity of trust as the bane of current international relations. He said, “The future of our partnerships depends on re-building this trust” and invoked former US President Ronald Reagan’s dictum, “Trust but verify”. Both during his G7 intervention and his meeting with Trump, Modi stressed the need to ensure the security of seafarers.
If New Delhi has conveyed its unhappiness to Washington, the White House has resorted to praising Modi to soothe tempers in the South Block. At their joint interaction with media when he met the PM in Evian, and subsequently in an interview on Saturday, Trump has lavished praise on Modi.
Addressing the India-US Forum on Friday, Gor spoke of the high regard that Trump has for Modi. In Evian on Wednesday — after he concluded his penultimate bilateral meeting of the day — Trump asked who was next, and was visibly upset that the meet with Modi was scheduled for only 15 minutes. Eventually, the Trump-Modi meeting exceeded 45 minutes.
Since Saturday morning, Gor has also been posting video clips of Trump’s interview with Axios, where the US President hailed Modi as a “great leader” and “tough guy”, who has been in power for more than 12 years. In the interview, Trump referred to China’s President Xi Jinping and Modi as the two greatest leaders he likes the most in terms of power and leverage, and the ability to execute on that.
Trump said: “And we do a lot of business with them (India), but now we do fair business. They used to really rip us off. I don’t blame them for that. You know, we had stupid politicians that allowed that to happen. But now we do a lot of business.” “They’re not that happy about it because they used to do a lot better. So Modi’s great.”
The US president also listed Pakistan’s Army Chief Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as leaders whom he liked.
At their meeting, Modi and Trump devoted much time on the bilateral trade deal.
Both sides are hopeful of moving forward on it with US Trade Representative, Jamieson Greer, visiting India this week for further negotiations. Significantly, within hours of returning to New Delhi from France on Thursday, Gor called on Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
“(We) had a detailed discussion on further strengthening cooperation between India and the US in the area of security, particularly in counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics. Under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi, India is firmly committed to advancing the India–US Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership and ensuring that the people of both nations benefit from the bilateral relationship,” Shah posted on X.
 "If New Delhi has conveyed its unhappiness to Washington, the White House has resorted to praising Modi to soothe tempers in the South Block")