TOI correspondent from Washington: The friendship between Donald Trump and PM Modi — dubbed a bromance by the media– began to come unstuck late in Trump’s first term, and continued to fray despite efforts to re-kindle it in the US President’s second term, according to multiple accounts from White House insiders and current and former officials and diplomats, pieced together by TOI. There has been no official confirmation of the reports from either the Indian or the American side.Officials who served in the White House during Trump 1.0 traced mutual misgivings to July 22, 2019, when the US President, a novice in issues relating to the subcontinent, told Pakistan’s then PM Imran Khan during his visit to the White House that he was willing to mediate in the Kashmir issue if both countries agreed, claiming that Modi had asked him to play a role.The remark shocked New Delhi, which said there was no such request from Modi in keeping with India’s long held stand that it is a bilateral issue that brooks no third-party mediation.According to White House insiders, Trump’s flub came despite a 45-minute briefing by senior officials well-versed in the region in which they explained the intricacies — for which he apparently had no bandwidth. His mediation offer could also have been based on a misunderstanding of a private phone conversation with Modi in which the Indian PM may have suggested he temper Pakistan’s approach to the issue. In either case, Trump was nonplussed why anyone would reject his offer for mediation, the sources said. A rousing visit to India for the Namaste Trump rally, just days before the Covid shutdown, papered over this glitch. The second snafu came in September 2024 when Modi was visiting the US to attend the UN General Assembly and the Quad summit hosted by President Biden. Indian interlocutors reached out to Trump, who was campaigning for a second term, to set up a meeting, while also reaching out to his rival Kamala Harris. While Trump readily agreed to see the Indian PM and even announced at a campaign event in Michigan that he was meeting Modi, Harris’ campaign balked.The Indian side backed out of the Trump meeting since it did not want to meet only one candidate. This did not go down well with Trump, since he had already announced he was meeting Modi.Still, the two principals appeared to have overcome the wrinkles when Modi became one of the first foreign leaders to meet Trump in the White House after he won a second term, the US President hosting him for a working visit on February 13 this year. But by this time, Trump had worked himself into a rage over the tariff issue, not just at India (although he had begun to call it the tariff king), but the world at large. Although officials from both sides put together a grand COMPACT (“Catalyzing Opportunities for Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce & Technology) for the 21st Century”), Trump had little bandwidth for pages and pages of fact sheets and joint statement loaded with Modi’s favored acronyms. He wanted headline-making big ticket announcements. He got little for his MAGA faithful beyond projections and promises on the trade front.Moreover, when Trump spoke of MAGA, Modi responded that it could co-exist with his own idea of MIGA aka Viksit Bharat. And then there was the small matter of Elon Musk calling on Modi at Blair House before the Oval Office meeting. By then Trump had begun to sour on Tesla and Apple’s plans in India.The fourth episode came during the four-day India-Pakistan conflict, which Trump fervently believes he brought to an end. While New Delhi says there was no phone conversation between Trump and Modi during the clash, in the US President’s mind, he got Vance to make the call (after possibly failing to reach Modi). Modi himself has said he missed several calls from Vance before he could be reached.Trump’s latest comments — sketchy and disjointed — suggests he talked the Pakistani leadership (not clear who) and warned them they would not get a trade deal if they did not stop the fighting. India says it only responded to the Pakistani overtures for a truce, which New Delhi agreed to. Repudiating his role in dousing a war that he believes would have gone nuclear has clearly miffed Trump, who has been fairly transparent in his quest for a Nobel Peace Prize.The final straw came when Modi declined Trump’s invitation to stop by at the White House on his way back from G-20 in Canada, on the same day the US President had invited Pakistan’s de facto military ruler Asim Munir. The Indian side feared a photo-op ambush. By this time, bilateral negotiations on trade were drawing to a conclusion with negotiating teams from both sides so close to a deal that top US officials said it was imminent. But peeved over what he possibly saw as multiple slights, Trump torpedoed it, using India’s Russian oil purchase as a ruse.
