Trump invites Indian PM Modi to White House

President Trump has invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the White House next week for a working visit, a White House official confirmed to The Hill.

Modi will travel to Washington D.C. for a two-day visit. The invite comes just days after a recent phone call between the two leaders.

The "productive call" touched on expanding U.S.-India cooperation on a number of global issues, which included security in the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East, and Europe.

The phone call also saw Trump emphasize "the importance of India increasing its procurement of American-made security equipment and moving towards a fair bilateral trading relationship," the White House said in a statement.

“He is going to be coming to the White House, over next month, probably February. We have a very good relationship with India,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One in January.

The confirmation of the visit follows news that a U.S. military plane with at least 100 migrants aboard landed in India on Wednesday.

An Air Force C-17 plane landed at about 3:30 a.m. ET in Amritsar, India, according to the Defense Department. India previously said it would repatriate all Indians who entered the U.S. illegally. 

The visit also comes as Trump has increasingly threatened the BRICS countries, which includes Brazil, India, Russia, China and South Africa, with steep tariffs if they move to create a new currency that aims to rival the dollar.

The Quad alliance, which includes the U.S., India, Australia and Japan, a bloc formed to counter Chinese clout in the Indo-Pacific, is also expected to come up in talks between the two leaders. India is set to host the Quad leaders' summit in 2025.

The Indian prime minister, who was reelected to a third term last year, but with greatly reduced power in parliament, has shared a warm relationship with Trump. Trump attended a massive rally with Modi in Houston in 2019, and visited India in February 2020, where thousands of people watched the two leaders speak in Ahmedabad.

Trump has previously described Modi as “fantastic” while describing India as a “very big abuser” in trade. His first term saw the Trump administration in 2019 cancel special trade privileges with India, responding India placing tariffs of its own on more than two dozen U.S. goods.

Former President Biden hosted Modi for a state dinner in 2023, with more than 70 Democratic members of Congress signing a letter urging Biden to discuss human rights and democratic values during his visit.