The meeting turned out to be a full endorsement of India and PM Modi by the US President.

On the eve of US Trade Representative Jameson Greer’s visit to India next week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged US President Donald Trump for an early signing of a bilateral trade deal at the Evian meeting on Wednesday evening. Both sides agreed that negotiations should be completed soon so that the trade deal is signed and India-US ties move to the next level.

While critics of PM Modi and his foreign policy assumed that India-US bilateral ties would move into management mode due to mercurial President Trump, the meeting turned out to be a full endorsement of India and PM Modi by the US President. During the press conference after the bilateral meeting, President Trump made it amply clear that he was all out for India-US ties and dished out all accolades and respect for PM Modi. He said till PM Modi was around, India had a friend in the White House and that the US would come to India’s aid if it was attacked by any third country.

The statement that the US would come to India’s defence does not mean much substantively in the sense that the Modi government does not need any support to tackle its adversaries but at the same time it was a message to India’s neighbors like Pakistan. In many ways, it was a clear message to all that President Trump had a close personal friend in PM Modi and both the countries were on the same page on global issues. While admitting that India was a global power, President Donald Trump said it was for New Delhi to decide whether it wanted to play any role in the Middle-East peace deal. PM Modi had a meeting with Ukranian President V Zelensky after the talks with President Trump.