Modi to visit China; strains in India-US ties cast uncertainty over Trump's Delhi visit for Quad summit

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi may attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s summit in China on August 31 and September 1, even as uncertainty looms large over President Donald Trump’s visit to India for the summit of the Quad, given the stress in New Delhi’s ties with Washington DC over tariffs.

Modi was expected to host Trump and other leaders of the Quad later this year for the summit of the coalition India, Japan, Australia, and the United States forged to counter China’s hegemonic aspirations in the Indo-Pacific. But, the summit of the four-nation coalition now looks uncertain, with New Delhi’s ties with Washington, D.C. coming under stress due to the US president’s tariff tirade against India and his repeated claims about persuading India and Pakistan to halt the cross-border military flare-up between May 7 and 10.

The prime minister, however, is likely to visit Tianjin in northern China for the summit of the SCO, which is perceived as a counterweight to the US-led NATO, sources in New Delhi told DH on Wednesday. This is going to be his first visit to China in seven years. The India-China relations had hit a new low over the stand-off in eastern Ladakh between April-May 2020 to October 2024. Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, however, agreed to bring the ties back on track when they met at Kazan in Russia in October 2024.

The prime minister may also visit Japan before or after visiting China.

He is also likely to host Russian President Vladimir Putin in New Delhi later this year, notwithstanding the US president’s recent comments slamming India for its reliance on the former Soviet Union nation for military hardware and for continuing to buy oil from it even after it came under sanctions for its special military operations in Ukraine. Putin’s annual summit with Modi in New Delhi is on the agenda of the National Security Advisor Ajit Doval’s discussion with the senior officials in the Kremlin during his ongoing visit to Moscow. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will also visit Moscow later this month and meet his counterpart Sergey Lavrov, added the sources in New Delhi.

Modi had last month visited Rio de Janeiro for the summit of the BRICS – a bloc, which had also been targeted by Trump for allegedly seeking to end the dominance of the dollar in global trade.

Trump, on July 30, imposed a 25% tariff on all goods exported by India to the US. He followed it up on July 31 by calling India’s economy ‘dead’ and even announced a trade deal with its neighbour and arch-rival Pakistan. He announced on Wednesday an additional 25% tariff on the US exports from India for the South Asian nation’s continued purchase of oil from Russia.

Soon after Trump had returned to the White House as the 47th American president, Modi had visited Washington, D.C., on February 13 and met him. The two leaders had decided to conclude the first tranche of the trade deal by fall. The joint statement issued after the meeting also noted that Modi looked forward to hosting Trump for the next summit of the Quad in India.

The negotiations for a trade deal got stuck with New Delhi not yielding to the Trump Administration’s pressure to lower tariffs on the import of farm and dairy products from the US. Washington, D.C., also refused to accept New Delhi’s demand to lower tariffs on the export of textiles and leather products from India to the US. Trump’s move to impose a total 50% tariff on India’s exports to the US would further make it difficult for both nations to move ahead with the negotiations.

Though Jaishankar and the American Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, as well as their counterparts from Canberra and Tokyo, had already held two rounds of meetings of the foreign ministers of the Quad in Washington, D.C, the summit now looks uncertain with the Modi Government in New Delhi hesitant to host Trump and expose itself to political attacks from the Opposition, given the US president’s relentless broadsides against India. Apart from slamming New Delhi for tariffs and non-tariff barriers for US businesses in India, Trump may also end up embarrassing Modi by repeating his claim about brokering a ceasefire between New Delhi and Islamabad, thus providing fresh ammo to the Opposition in India, added the sources.