Modi in the United States, where Sanjeev Ahluwalia reports, finds more media hype than substantial outcomes from the meeting with Trump

The much-anticipated meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump in Washington on February 13, 2025, marked a significant event in the bilateral relationship. The initial gatherings seemed promising, with Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Musk, and a head of a new US agency named DOGE in attendance.

However, discordant notes arose before the scheduled meeting as Trump issued directives for a "Fair and Reciprocal Plan" to counter non-reciprocal trading arrangements, which upends established global trading arrangements. This plan specifically targets India as a "tariff king," particularly for tariffs on the import of agricultural goods.

In response, the US has asked India to import more oil and natural gas to reduce the trade imbalance. Commercial cooperation in clean energy solutions, such as small modular reactors, has been proposed to meet India's unmet demand for clean energy. Joint development, production, and transfer are also planned in artificial intelligence, low-cost LLMs, high-capacity chips, and green biotechnology.

The US has threatened tariff action on any country aiming to sabotage the dominance of the US dollar and the US financial market. China was slapped with additional tariffs of 10 percent in this regard.

The expectations for the meeting were impossibly high based on the "beautiful friendship" between the two leaders. However, the meeting between Modi and Trump was awkwardly timed and had more misses than hits. Business and feelings rarely go happily together, and anything else is exceptional and best left to good fortune and common sense.

Modi's speech at the AI Action Summit in Paris the day before was well received and conveyed maturity, vision, and global concern. The extradition of Tahawwur Rana, an alleged perpetrator of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack, has been proposed as a way to assuage Indian ire at procedural delays.

Several US Congressmen have written to the attorney-general against "questionable decisions" by the justice department, including entertaining a case against the Adani Group. The appropriate action, they feel, "would have been to defer the case to the Indian authorities" since no real injury had been caused to US interests, and both the company and the officials are in India.

The Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland, who, on February 10, 2025, under President Trump, ordered the suspension of new Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) investigations or prosecutions except in exceptional cases and the review of all existing FCPA investigations or prosecutions, is a testament to the administration's focus on reevaluating US foreign policy.

The writer is a former IAS officer, governance and economic regulation expert, and Distinguished Fellow, Chintan Research Foundation. New initiatives are planned for supply chains of critical minerals, advanced materials, and pharmaceuticals, as well as the recovery of strategic minerals like lithium and rare earths. The future of the Modi-Trump relationship remains to be seen, but it is clear that both nations have much to gain from strengthening their economic ties.

Modi in the United States, where Sanjeev Ahluwalia reports, finds more media hype than substantial outcomes from the meeting with Trump