Trump Reportedly Cancels India Visit for Quad Summit Amid Strained Ties
The US President is also reportedly furious that India has refused to open its agriculture and dairy markets to US goods.
New Delhi, New York: United States President Donald Trump “no longer has plans” to visit India later this year for the Quad Summit, ‘The New York Times (NYT)’ has claimed, as per latest news agency reports from New York on Saturday evening. The Quad comprises India, the US, Japan and Australia, and its stated objective is to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific region.
According to news agency reports, in the report titled ‘The Nobel Prize and a Testy Phone Call: How the Trump-Modi Relationship Unraveled’, the newspaper, citing people familiar with President Trump’s schedule, said that “After telling Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he would travel to India later this year for the Quad summit, Trump no longer has plans to visit in the fall”. The publication detailed how relations between the American leader and Modi “unravelled” over the last few months.
Uncertainty has grown in the past few months regarding India’s plans to host the summit of the four-nation Quad following sharply deteriorating ties between India and its close strategic partner the US over trade tensions and Indian import of Russian oil. Upset at not being able to achieve a breakthrough to stop the Russia-Ukraine war, President Trump and his Administration have now started targeting India.
The US President is also reportedly furious that India has refused to open its agriculture and dairy markets to US goods. Just earlier this week, the US imposed 50 per cent tariffs on Indian exports, half of which is a “penalty” for import of Russian oil by India. Despite New Delhi’s refutations at the highest levels, President Trump has also been claiming — in his pursuit of a Nobel Peace Prize — that his administration brokered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan in May this year using trade as a pressure tactic and thereby averted a nuclear conflict between the two neighbours.
Just on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shigeru Ishiba had discussed deepening cooperation within the Quad. But if the Trump administration signals in the coming weeks that it is no longer interested in the Quad, that may sound the death-knell of the robust mechanism that has the four nations collaborating on a range of issues from health and vaccines to infrastructure. The ultimate winner in such a scenario would be China that views the Quad as an alliance hostile to it.