Trump and Modi trumpet Indo-US “strategic convergence”
By
Deepal Jayasekera
28 June 2017
US President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to strengthen the Indo-US “global strategic partnership” when they met at the White House Monday for their first bilateral meeting.
Modi, an arch-communalist and faithful errand boy for big business, and Trump, the billionaire autocrat, lavished praise on one another, while emphasizing the “strategic convergence” between the US and India.
Under Modi’s three year-old Bharatiya Janata Party-led government, India is increasingly serving as a frontline state in US imperialism’s military-strategic offensive against China. India has dramatically expanded bilateral and trilateral military-strategic ties with Washington and its principal Asia-Pacific allies, Japan and Australia, and has thrown open its military bases to US warplanes and battleships for routine resupply and repair.
At a joint press conference and in the statement they issued summarizing their talks, Trump and Modi vowed to “expand and deepen” the Indo-US alliance, with Modi endorsing Washington’s provocative stance on North Korea and the South China Sea dispute, and Trump extending several strategic “favours” to India.
“The relationship between India and the United States has never been stronger, has never been better,” Trump told the press conference. Characterizing the “security partnership between the United States and India” as “incredibly important,” the US President added: “Our militaries are working every day to enhance cooperation between our military forces. And next month, they will join together with the Japanese navy to take place in the largest maritime exercise ever conducted in the vast Indian…