Trump dinner, ‘El-Mo’ meeting on cards at PM Modi’s US visit on February 13

The TOI correspondent from Washington: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will arrive in Washington a week from now to meet a US President consumed with grand geo-political ideas and theater, with little bandwidth for the small stuff and minor details. While mollifying Trump on trade issues by reducing tariffs and buying more US products will be part of the Indian approach, Trump’s tectonic shake-out proposals in the middle-east suggest he’s ready for bold, even outrageous, geo-political gambles, something that sits uneasily with an Indian establishment that is very cautious and circumspect in this regard.
Modi will be only the second foreign leader after Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet Trump at the White House after he assumed office for a second term on January 20, a stark reminder of the MAGA-infused President alliance and partnership priorities. Although not a formal treaty ally — not that he values any alliance — India is a key piece in Trump’s scheme of things. Officials previewing the visit say big ticket announcements on military purchases, energy (including nuclear) supplies, and artificial intelligence collaboration are on the cards in keeping with the new expectations.
Visiting Indian PMs typically place great emphasis on engaging the US Congress during such visits, but American lawmakers have been reduced to supine bystanders in the imperial Trump II regime. Instead, the most important interlocutor in Washington DC after the US President is his unelected tech surrogate Elon Musk, who also happens to be a long-time Modi supporter. Sources said an “El-Mo” meeting has not been pencilled in yet during the one-day (February 13) visit, but it is very much on the cards given their long engagement going back to 2015, when Modi first visited the Tesla factory in Fremont, California.
The schedule for Modi’s visit is still being worked out but sources said he is expected to arrive in Washington DC late on February 12 and depart early on February 14, with all of February 13 committed to

bilateral meetings

at the White House, with a possible dinner to be hosted by the US President. Musk, who is literally camping out at the Old Executive Office Building next door, will almost certainly be present at the meetings or call on Modi at the Willard Hotel on the other side of the White House.

Trump will have most of his cabinet nominees confirmed by the time Modi arrives, along with Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel, both with strong ties to the Modi dispensation that is expected to spur cooperation in intelligence field. The only missing piece will be a new US ambassador to India, which Trump has been unable to fill given that many fat cat donors and MAGA principals are said to have given New Delhi a pass because of pollution issues.
Scuttlebutt in the US capital that Trump daughter Ivanka was interested in the job has no basis, sources said, given that she has three young children. Trump has named Ivanka’s father-in-law Charles Kushner as the US ambassador to France and another in-law, Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law Massad Boulos, as Middle East advisor.