President Trump met the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for their first face-to-face meeting and sealed with a bear hug Monday, as the two leaders are hopeful for their new found friendship.
Trump recalled a pledge he made during his 2016 campaign, that if he was elected, India would have a true friend in the White House. “And that is now exactly what you have — a true friend,” he said.
The President went on to describe the relationship between India and the United States as having “never been stronger, has never been better.” Trump seemed impressed to have also met Modi, a fellow Twitter leader with a huge following of 31 million followers, we are “world leaders in social media,” said Trump, who has 32.8 million followers on his personal Twitter account.
PM Modi on the other hand, described his experience at the White House visit as being “filled with friendliness” from the “opening tweet to the end of our talks.” This warm relation is a sharp contrast from what the talks were predicted to be given that both countries were on the opposite ends of the pole on some key issues.
Modi, under a program titled “Make in India,” has been looking for foreign companies to set up production in India which is a polar opposite of President Trump’s “America First” messaging, where Trump cut down on shipping and production by American companies overseas. Also Trump’s executive order for “Buy American, Hire American” signed in April, overhauled the H-1B visa program primarily used by Indian engineers and developers.
During his announcement to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement, Trump slammed India for receiving “billions” of dollars in return for signing the accord, an allegation that India strongly refuted.
