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05-02-2025
Bureau Report + Agencies
NEW DELHI/ WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit the White House next week, a White House official said, hours after a US military plane departed to return deported migrants to the country.
Trump spoke with Modi on Jan. 27, when he discussed immigration and stressed the importance of India buying more American-made security equipment and fair bilateral trading ties.
India, a strategic partner of the United States in its efforts to counter China, is keen to enhance trade relations with the US and make it easier for its citizens to get skilled worker visas.
It is also keen to avoid tariffs that Trump has threatened in the past, citing India’s high tariffs on US products.
The United States is India’s largest trading partner and two-way trade between the two countries surpassed $118 billion in 2023/24, with India posting a trade surplus of $32 billion.
However, a US military plane is deporting migrants to India, a US official said on Monday, the farthest destination of the Trump administration’s military transport flights for migrants.
President Donald Trump has increasingly turned to the military to help carry out his immigration agenda, including sending additional troops to the US-Mexico border, using military aircraft to deport migrants and opening military bases to house them.
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the C-17 aircraft had departed for India with migrants abroad but would not arrive for at least 24 hours.
The Pentagon has also started providing flights to deport more than 5,000 immigrants held by US authorities in El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, California.
So far, military aircraft have flown migrants to Guatemala, Peru and Honduras.
The military flights are a costly way to transport migrants. Reuters reported that a military deportation flight to Guatemala last week likely cost at least $4,675 per migrant.
Last month the US President Donald Trump stressed the importance of India buying more American-made security equipment and moving toward a fair bilateral trading relationship in a phone call with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, the White House said.
Trump later himself told reporters they also spoke about the issue of immigration and that Modi will visit the US sometime in February. The White House said earlier that plans for a Modi visit were discussed by the two leaders.
In what the White House called a “productive call,” the leaders discussed expanding and deepening cooperation and issues including security in the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East, and Europe.
Reuters reported last week that Indian and American diplomats are trying to arrange a meeting of the leaders as early as February.
Trump and Modi enjoyed warm relations in the US president’s first term, but during his campaign for re-election Trump called India a “very big abuser” on trade and vowed to use tariffs on global imports into the US to correct imbalances. Trump has also threatened the BRICS group of nations, of which India is a part, with tariffs if they did not accept his demand of committing to not create a new currency.
In Monday’s call, Trump “emphasized the importance of India increasing its procurement of American-made security equipment and moving toward a fair bilateral trading relationship,” a White House statement said.
