Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reportedly turned down four telephone calls from US President Donald Trump in recent weeks as trade tensions between the two nations continue to escalate over additional 25 per cent tariffs on Indian goods for purchasing Russian crude oil, German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported.
A similar report carried by Japan’s Nikkei Asia points to fast-deteriorating ties between the US and India, despite both governments earlier calling their partnership “the most consequential of the 21st century".
HT.com couldn't independently verify the authenticity of the claims.
“Trump has tried four times in recent weeks to get Modi on the phone. But Modi refuses to take the call,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) claimed. The report did not name the sources.
Both Washington and New Delhi haven't immediately responded to the reports.
On August 24, Nikkei Asia, a Japan-based news magazine, quoted Indian diplomatic experts as saying, “Trump recently attempted multiple times to call Modi in search of a compromise. But the Indian leader has consistently refused to take the calls, further heightening Trump’s frustration.”
Reports suggested that PM Narendra Modi’s refusal was linked to apprehensions that Donald Trump could misrepresent the outcome of talks, particularly on sensitive India–Pakistan issues. This comes after Trump’s repeated but unverified assertions that he prevented a nuclear conflict between the two neighbours through trade pressure, the claims rejected by the Indian government.
{{/usCountry}}Reports suggested that PM Narendra Modi’s refusal was linked to apprehensions that Donald Trump could misrepresent the outcome of talks, particularly on sensitive India–Pakistan issues. This comes after Trump’s repeated but unverified assertions that he prevented a nuclear conflict between the two neighbours through trade pressure, the claims rejected by the Indian government.
{{/usCountry}}Modi also turned down Trump’s last-minute invitation to Washington in late June after the G20 summit in Canada, where the two leaders did not meet as the US President left early.
Trump was said to have wanted Modi at the White House alongside Pakistani Army chief General Asim Munir, in order to showcase himself as a peacemaker. India, however, strongly objected to what it saw as a false equivalence being drawn between “a perpetrator of terrorism and a victim of terrorism”.
Former US National Security Advisor John Bolton, who has himself clashed with Trump, said India feels “deeply aggrieved” because it has been singled out for tariff and sanction threats while Russia and China have faced little pressure.
“The longer India hangs out to dry, the worse the New Delhi-Washington relationship gets,” Bolton wrote, shortly after being subjected to an FBI raid in what was described as a national security investigation.