TOI correspondent from Washington: US President Donald Trump has checked deteriorating ties with India for now by asserting the two countries have a “special relationship” and there is “nothing to worry about” despite an impasse on trade issues. The assessment was reciprocated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who said the two countries have a “very positive and forward-looking comprehensive and global strategic partnership.”The indirect exchanges through media signaled a cooling down of growing tension between the two sides, although Trump made it clear he was still unhappy with India’s purchase of Russian oil that he and his surrogates claim is fueling Moscow’s war on Ukraine. Hours after his dramatic “Truth Social” post saying he had lost India and Russia to China, Trump did an about turn in a White House chat with reporters, asserting, “I don’t think we have (lost India). I’m disappointed that India is buying Russian oil and I’ve let them know with very big tariff…50% tariff.””I will always be friends with Modi… he is a great Prime Minister, … I just don’t like what he is doing at this particular moment, but India and the United States have a special relationship. There is nothing to worry about,” Trump said, when asked by the news agency ANI if he is ready to reset tiesThe remarks came after New Delhi bluntly rejected US demand that it stop buying Russian oil, with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman defiantly saying India will “take a call on what suits us best.” “We will undoubtedly be buying (Russian oil),” she told CNN-IBN. Separately, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal adopted a more conciliatory tone, saying the trade row is just a temporary wrinkle in an otherwise consequential relationship that will not be easily derailed.That message came after US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick publicly and offensively laid out a laundry list of US demands of New Delhi, including not buying Russian oil and pulling out of Brics, and predicted that India would make a trade deal with Trump within two months after saying sorry. Separately, White House trade counselor Peter Navarro, Lutnick’s comrade-in-incendiary rhetoric, reacted to a Washington Post story about the damage he is doing to the relationship with his scabrous remarks, saying “India can’t handle truth/spins @washpo Leftist American fake news.” Navarro has accused India of being “Kremlin’s laundromat” and characterized the Russia-Ukraine war as “Modi’s war” among other comments that have offended New Delhi and inflamed public opinion in India. Ridiculed even in the US for faking quotes for his book and his quack economic theories, Navarro and his MAGA cohorts are now canvassing for tariffing foreign remote workers, including outsourcing to India, action that would tip the relationship into uncharted territory. While there is still no direct contact between Trump and Modi, possibly with a phone call that some analysts have called for, it now appears the Indian PM will also pass on visiting the US for the UN General Assembly meeting later this month, forgoing a prospective meeting with the US President. Foreign Minister S.Jaishankar will represent India at the annual talkshop. There is still no word on whether Trump will travel to India for the Quad meeting later in the year, an engagement that, if he attends, will reveal whether he is still invested in Indo-Pacific security. The Pentagon’s (“Department of War”) latest National Defense Strategy is reported to be de-prioritizing “deterring China” — a US goal for the past two decades — in favor of focusing on the the American homeland and the Western hemisphere.
