Former US President Donald Trump has indicated that he may travel to India next year, adding that discussions with New Delhi are “going good.”
“It’s great, going good. He (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) stopped... Largely he stopped buying oil from Russia,” Trump said in the Oval Office when asked about his talks and trade discussions with India.
Calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi “a friend,” Trump added, “He wants me to go there. We'll figure that out. I'll go. I had a great trip there with Prime Minister Modi, he’s a great man. And I'll be going.”
When asked specifically if the trip could happen next year, Trump replied, “It could be, yeah.”
India is set to host the next Quad summit in New Delhi, bringing together leaders from Australia, Japan, and the United States. The exact dates for the upcoming meeting have not yet been announced.
During his interaction with the press, Trump also repeated his claim that he had helped stop a potential conflict between India and Pakistan using trade.
“Of the eight wars I ended, I would say five or six were ended because of tariffs,” he said. “If you take a look at India and Pakistan, they started to fight, they are two nuclear nations... They were shooting each other. Eight planes were shot down. It was seven. Now it is eight, because the one that was sort of shot down is now abandoned. Eight planes were shot down. And I said, 'Listen, if you guys are going to fight, I'm gonna put tariffs on you’. And they both went, you know, they were not happy about that. And within 24 hours, I settled the war. If I didn't have tariffs, I wouldn't have been able to settle that war.”
Trump concluded by describing tariffs as a form of “great national defence.”
