NEW DELHI: US President Donald Trump “no longer has plans” to visit India later this year for the Quad Summit, The New York Times reported on Saturday, detailing how ties between Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have “unravelled” in recent months.In a report titled The Nobel Prize and a Testy Phone Call: How the Trump-Modi Relationship Unravelled, the NYT, citing people familiar with Trump’s schedule, said: “After telling Mr Modi that he would travel to India later this year for the Quad summit, Mr Trump no longer has plans to visit in the fall.” There was no official comment from either government on the report.India is scheduled to host the Quad Summit later this year. Earlier in January, the Trump administration had hosted the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting, a day after Trump took the oath of office for a second term.The article linked the souring ties to Trump’s repeated assertions that he had resolved the four-day conflict in May between India and Pakistan — claims denied by New Delhi. “President Trump’s repeated claims about having ‘solved’ the India-Pakistan war infuriated Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And that was only the beginning,” it said, adding that PM Modi was “losing patience” with Trump.On June 17, PM Modi and Trump spoke for 35 minutes as Trump returned to Washington from the G7 Summit in Canada, which PM Modi also attended. The two were due to meet on the sidelines of the summit in Kananaskis, but Trump left early, prompting PM Modi to speak to him over the phone before his departure.During that call, Trump invited PM Modi to stop over in Washington, but the request was declined as PM Modi had a scheduled visit to Croatia.Foreign secretary Vikram Misri later said in a video message from Kananaskis that PM Modi told Trump “at no point during the days following Operation Sindoor was there any discussion, at any level, on an India-US trade deal, or any proposal for a mediation by the US between India and Pakistan.” Misri added that talks to end military action were initiated by Pakistan and handled directly through existing channels between the two armed forces.According to the NYT, during the June 17 call, Trump again claimed credit for ending the escalation and noted that Pakistan intended to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. “The not-so-subtle implication, according to people familiar with the call, was that Mr Modi should do the same,” the paper reported. PM Modi, however, “bristled. He told Mr Trump that US involvement had nothing to do with the recent ceasefire. It had been settled directly between India and Pakistan,” the report said.“Trump largely brushed off Mr Modi’s comments, but the disagreement — and Mr Modi’s refusal to engage on the Nobel — has played an outsize role in the souring relationship between the two leaders, whose once-close ties go back to Mr Trump’s first term,” it added. The White House did not acknowledge the call, and Trump made no mention of it online, though he has repeated his claim of halting the conflict “over 40 times since May 10.”The NYT framed the episode as “the tale of an American president with his eye on a Nobel Prize, running smack into the immovable third rail of Indian politics: the conflict with Pakistan.”The report also tied Trump’s recent tariffs on India — an additional 25% duty on Russian oil purchases — to frustrations with Prime Minister Modi. It described the “colossal penalties on India in particular” as “punishment for not falling in line rather than any kind of cohesive effort to reduce the trade deficit or cut off funding for” Russia’s war.Richard Rossow, chair on India at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, was quoted as saying: “If this was a real change in policy in trying to squeeze Russia, Trump could have put his weight behind legislation that would have imposed secondary sanctions on countries that buy Russian hydrocarbons. The fact that they have uniquely targeted India says this is about more than just Russia.”The NYT added that Trump, “frustrated by the tariff negotiations,” tried reaching out to PM Modi several times, but the Prime Minister Modi “did not respond to those requests.”
