The New York Times reported on Saturday that US President Donald Trump “no longer has plans,” to visit India later this year for the Quad Summit, citing sources familiar with his schedule. According to an NYT report titled ‘The Nobel Prize and a Testy Phone Call: How the Trump-Modi Relationship Unraveled’, Trump had said to Modi he would travel to India in the fall, but has since dropped those plans.
So far there has been no official statement on this subject from the US or Indian government. India is hosting the Quad summit later this year. Earlier, the Trump administration held a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Quad countries in January, a day after the start of his second term. The report said that relations between Trump and Modi started to sour due to trade tensions, especially after Trump claimed that he had resolved the military tension between India and Pakistan in May – which India rejected several times. The report also said that Modi was very angry with Trump’s repeated claims and his patience with Trump was decreasing.
In addition, on June 17, when Trump was returning from Canada after the G7 summit, he spoke to Modi on the phone for about 35 minutes. Although the two leaders had planned to have a face-to-face meeting during the summit, Trump had already left. Modi spoke to him on the phone.
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said in a video message that in this conversation Modi made it clear that neither the Indo-US trade agreement nor the US mediation in the Indo-Pak dispute was discussed. He said that the ceasefire process took place directly between the armies of India and Pakistan through military channels and it was initiated by Pakistan. Modi clearly said that India will never accept mediation in its disputes with Pakistan.
According to the report, during the phone call Trump again took credit for calming down Indo-Pak tensions and claimed that Pakistan was going to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize an award previously awarded to Barack Obama and which Trump has been desperately trying to get. The report also said that Trump indirectly indicated that Modi should nominate him as well.
