Washington: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump, saying both leaders are committed to a ‘mutually beneficial and trusted partnership’.
“Delighted to speak with my dear friend President @realDonaldTrump @POTUS,” PM Modi wrote on X.
The Prime Minister said that he also congratulated President Trump on his historic second term.
“We are committed to a mutually beneficial and trusted partnership. We will work together for the welfare of our people and towards global peace, prosperity, and security,” PM Modi wrote on X.
There was no word yet from the White House, which, as is the practice, will release a readout of the conversation shortly.
This was the second phone conversation between the two leaders after President Trump’s re-election; the first took place just after Trump won the election in November.
The two leaders have shared a close personal relationship going back to President Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021.
The U.S. President jointly addressed a rally hosted for Prime Minister Modi in Houston in 2019 called the “Howdy Modi” rally and then he travelled to India in February 2020 for a “Namaste Trump” in PM Modi’s home state Gujarat.
The two leaders will meet personally sometime this year. According to a report officials of the two countries are trying to arrange for a meeting in February but neither side has made any announcements to that effect yet.
They will meet most certainly when President Trump travels to India for a summit of the Quad countries. It’s India’s turn to host the summit and likely this year.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar represented the Prime Minister at Trump’s inauguration last week and attended all related events, even a prayer service where guests included the Trump family, cabinet members and the U.S. President allies in the tech world, such as Elon Musk of Tesla, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sundar Pichai of Google.
Jaishankar was also Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s first foreign guest for a bilateral meeting at the State Department, following another meeting of the Quad foreign ministers, along with Australia’s Penny Wong and Japan’s Iwaya Takeshi.
(IANS)
