Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said that President-elect Donald Trump is a ‘friend of India’ and India-US friendship will only continue to blossom and grow further. The minister also said he does not foresee any problems in the Indo-US partnership, and exuded confidence that it would further strengthen with the new administration taking over in Washington.
About how India is placed as the new Trump administration is set to assume charge in the US, the minister said ‘I think we need not jump the gun. We should let the new government (in the US) come and take charge and express their formal and official views. But to the best of my understanding of the situation and my own experience in working with the Trump administration ...I do not foresee any problem whatsoever’.
Trump, during his election campaign, had alleged that India, among all major countries, imposes the highest tariffs on foreign products and also vowed to introduce a reciprocal tax if elected to power. Goyal said Prime Minister Modi, the world's most popular leader today, has managed India's international relationships better than ever in the past. The minister emphasised that Modi has worked with three administrations in the US, the Barack Obama administration, the Donal Trump administration, the Joe Biden administration and ‘we will again work with the Trump administration’. He emphasised India's relations with the US have got better and better every year.
He said ‘As Mr Trump is himself on record to say, my good friend Mr Modi, and the confidence he (Trump) has on the India relationship, India partnership has been expressed on many occasions’. He further said ‘Mr Trump is a friend of India, a friend of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and I am sure this friendship will only continue to blossom and grow further as is evident from the various comments he has made so far.’