Trump pushes India to buy more US weapons

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has pushed India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to buy more American-made weapons, as he called for the countries to rebalance their trade relationship in a call late on Monday, foreign media reported on Tuesday.

Trump emphasized that India should be increasing its “procurement of American-made security equipment and moving towards a fair bilateral trading relationship”, according to a White House statement issued after the call between the leaders, which the US called “productive”.

“The bilateral relationship is very likely to remain a strong one under Trump 2.0, yet transactional, in which President Trump will also require some concessions from India,” said Rani Mullen, a senior visiting fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi.

The US is India’s second-largest trading partner, narrowly trailing China, and New Delhi recorded a $35bn trade surplus with Washington between January and November 2024, according to the latest data from India’s commerce ministry. Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on Brics countries, a grouping of major emerging economies that includes India. In a social media post late on Monday, Modi called Trump a “dear friend” and said they were “committed to a mutually beneficial and trusted partnership” in several areas, including security. Trump later told reporters that Modi would visit the White House “probably in February”, which would make the Indian leader among the first foreign dignitaries to visit since the US president’s inauguration.

Trump and Modi also discussed expanding security co-operation in the Indo-Pacific region and reiterated their commitment to the Quad — a strategic grouping that also includes Japan and Australia — according to the White House. India is set to host the group’s leaders this year.

Trump said he and Modi also discussed immigration, a priority for the new US administration, adding that the Indian prime minister would “do what’s right” in terms of accepting the return of illegal Indian nationals from the US. Indians made up the third-largest group of unauthorised immigrants in the US in 2022 after Mexico and El Salvador, according to the Pew Research Center.