- Friday, May 03, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
Former US president Donald Trump has showered praise on Indian prime minister Narendra Modi saying the latter is “doing a terrific job” and that the South Asian nation “has never had a better friend” than him. He also gave a broad hint at running for the White House in 2024.
The 76-year-old one-time president spoke to NDTV in an exclusive interview at his golf club in Bedminster near New York where he said everyone wanted him to run for the top post and that he was leading in the polls.
“I’ll make a decision in the very near future, I suspect,” he said.
When the Republican, who lost to current US president Joe Biden in a highly controversial 2020 presidential election, was asked whether he had a better relationship with India as the commander-in-chief compared to his successor or predecessor Barack Obama, he told the channel, “You’ll have to ask prime minister Modi, but I don’t think you’ve never had a better relationship than you had with President Trump.”
The mercurial leader also spoke about the big support he got from the Indian community and the rapport he shared with Modi, with whom he addressed mega events both in the US and India during his tenure (2017-21).
“I’ve had a great relationship to India and to prime minister Modi. We were we’ve been friends. And I think he’s a great guy and doing a terrific job. It’s not an easy job he’s got. So but we’ve known each other a long time. Good man,” he said.
On the possibility of a second version of him and his priorities when it comes to the US and India, Trump, a businessman-politician, told NDTV, “For America, energy independence. For India, India’s doing just fine with your great prime minister Modi, my friend. For America, I can only speak for America, we’re going to be energy independent, we’re going to have a great economy, roaring economy again, which we don’t have right now. Okay, we set every record on jobs. We’ve never had an economy, like the economy that I had. But we’ll bring back energy independence, and we will do things that we haven’t been able to do in the last two years.”
He also called his ties with India as one of the strong relationships that he had formed as the president.
Reiterating that he was the best friend that India found in the US, Trump said, “I think India has never had a better friend than me. That’s one of the relationships that I’ve formed. India has never had a better friend as president than me.”
Three years ago in September 2019, Trump and Modi, who had then won his second term as the prime minister, jointly addressed a huge ‘Howdy, Modi!’ rally in Houston, Texas, which was attended by thousands of Indian-Americans.
On that occasion, Modi said “Abki baar, Trump Sarkaar” (Trump will form government again next time) at the event.
It though didn’t materialise.
In February 2020, Trump visited Modi’s home state Gujarat where they addressed a big audience at a new cricket stadium named after Modi. Former first lady Melania Trump was also with the former president at that event.
