Remarks Prior to a Meeting With Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and an Exchange With Reporters

President Trump. Thank you very much. It's a great honor to have Prime Minister Modi of India. He is a great friend of mine for a long time. We've had a wonderful relationship, and we kept the relationship during the 4-year period—the period that was a very interesting period, indeed.

I watched. I got to see how not to do things. And we have just started up again, and we have, I think, some very big things to talk about.

Number one is, they're going to be purchasing a lot of our oil and gas. We have more oil and gas than any other country in the world, by far. And they need it, and we have it. And we're going to talk about trade. We're going to talk about many things.

But it's really an honor to see you, and you have been my friend for a long time. And congratulations on having done a great job.

Prime Minister Modi. Thank you.

President Trump. Thank you very much.

[At this point, Prime Minister spoke briefly in English as follows.]

Prime Minister Modi. Thank you.

Would you like to say anything more?

President Trump. No, I'm okay. [Laughter]

Prime Minister Modi. Your Excellency, I am delighted to see you back in the White House and to meet with you today in this room. On behalf of 1.4 billion people of India, let me convey my heartiest congratulations to you on your grand and historic victory.

Last year, the people of India gave me the opportunity to serve them for the third consecutive time, and it has happened in the history of India, in the last 60 years, for the first time. And in this term, I will have an opportunity to work with you over the next 4 years. And it's a great, great pleasure to see the two coincide.

And I can say from my past experience of working with you in your first term that we will continue to advance the India-U.S. strategic partnership with the same bond, with the same trust, and with the same excitement.

I am happy that as soon as I entered this room, my friend reminded me of Ahmedabad and the cricket stadium where we held the big rally and the events that we did—the mega events that we did: in Ahmedabad, "Namaste Trump" or the "Howdy Modi" in Houston. We had conveyed a very strong message of our friendship through those events, and the resounding echo of those events can be heard even today in India and the world.

Excellency, you have made immense personal contribution towards strengthening of our relations, towards making them more comprehensive, and in attaining unprecedented heights in our relationship. And I firmly believe that in your second term, we will work with even more speed.

As I had promised to the people of India that, in my third term as the Prime Minister of India, we will work with twice the speed, I firmly believe that with President Trump, during the next 4 years during his second term, we will work with twice the speed that we did in the first term.

One thing that I deeply appreciate and I learned from President Trump is that he keeps the national interest supreme. And, like him, I also keep the national interest of India at the top of everything else, and this has been my real fortune—fortune.

President Donald Trump and "Make America Great Again" are inseparable. Whenever we talk about President Trump, we—one has to talk about "Make America Great Again." Similarly, that vision inspires everybody. Similarly, in India, we have the resolve of 1.4 billion people of India that by the time India reaches the hundredth anniversary of its independence, we will make our country a developed country—by 2047. And this is getting new speed and new resolve.

U.S. is the world's largest—the world's oldest democracy, and India is the world's largest democracy. So, when India and the U.S. come together, they make one plus one—11 and not 2. [Laughter] And this is the power of 11 that is going to work for the welfare of the human—humanity.

I, once again, thank my friend President Trump, and we together resolve that we will together march towards progress and towards prosperity for our nations.

Thank you. Thank you.

President Trump. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

And he's doing a great job in India. Everybody talks about it. He's doing a really fantastic job. A great leader—great leader.

Prime Minister Modi. Thank you.

I thank you for your warm words, Mr. President, and I firmly believe that every person in India respects your sentiments.

President Trump. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Prime Minister Modi. Thank you. Thanks a lot.

President Trump. Any questions, please?

Q. Yes. President——

India-U.S. Relations

Q. Mr. President, you are—you know, you are both very popular leaders in your respective countries. You have spoken about a commonsense diplomatic doctrines. So what's a Trump-Modi doctrine that we should expect from the meetings today to make our—our world better and safer?

President Trump. Well, I think more than anything else will be the unity. We have great unity. We have great friendship, he and I and our countries. And I think it's only going to get closer. But it's very important that we remain united as countries. We are—we're friends, and we're going to stay that way.

[At this point, several reporters began asking questions at once.]

China/U.S. Economy

Q. President Trump, how are you going to fight China—if you are going to be tough with India on trade, how are you going to beat China then?

President Trump. We're in very good shape to beat anybody we want, but we're not looking to beat anybody. We're looking to do a really good job. We're—we've done a fantastic job for the American people. We had a great 4 years. Then we were interrupted by a terrible administration, absolutely terrible. They didn't know what they were doing. And now we're putting it back together, and I think it's going to end up being much stronger than it was before—even much stronger than it was before.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Q. President Trump, may I? May I? May I? May I?

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

U.S. Agency for International Development/2024 Presidential Election/India-U.S. Relations

Q. May I? May I? Yes.

President Trump, first of all, congratulations for the fantastic 24 days of your Presidency——

President Trump. Thank you very much.

Q. ——historic and unprecedented decisions that you made, transformational reforms. I'm——

President Trump. I like her. [Laughter] Who is she? I like her. Okay.

Q. I am particularly impressed by the exposé on USAID, and I would like you to share with us if you think USAID had a role in election interference in the U.S. in 2020 and Indian elections in 2024.

President Trump. So it could have had a role, and there were a lot of bad things that happened in 2020. I think bad things happened in 2024, but it was too big to rig. We—won by a tremendous margin. We won every swing State. We won the popular vote by millions of votes, so it was—it was too big to rig.

But yes, I think they probably tried. We're looking to go to a system now much different, where 1-day voting, voter ID, and you just—we have to do that—and paper ballots. We want paper ballots. And when they do that, we're going to clean it up very, very well.

But we had a great 2016. We had a much better 2020 election, but bad things happened. And we had the—best of all, we had, they say, the most consequential in history—129 years, most consequential. So it was a great election.

And it gives me a chance to work again with the Prime Minister. And India and I, we're going to be—we're going to have a great relationship together.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Thank you.

Q. Mr. President, do you see—Mr. President, do you see—do you see India playing a role in your plan to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine?

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

President Trump. Excuse me. Excuse me. [Inaudible]

Mayor Eric L. Adams of New York City/India-U.S. Relations

Q. Do you see India playing a role in your plan to broker a peace in Ukraine?

And if I could ask you about a development in your hometown today.

President Trump. Yes.

Q. The U.S. attorney has resigned over the DOJ's request to drop the case into Eric Adams. Did you personally request the Justice Department to drop that case?

President Trump. No, I didn't. I know nothing about it. I did not.

I think that—just to answer your other question—we're just going to get along well. We're going to get along with all countries. We're going to do very well. We're going to be doing, I think, record business, record numbers, and we're going to work with India also. We have some very big trade deals to announce in the very near future.

[Several reporters spoke at once. A reporter then asked a question in Hindi, which was translated by an interpreter as follows.]

Bangladesh/Russia/Ukraine

Q. Mr. Prime—Mr. Prime Minister, President Trump had a telephone conversation with President Putin yesterday on—they discussed the Russia-Ukraine conflict. You've also met President Putin and President Zelenskyy. Do you think the talks about peace that you've been having—can India play a role in ending the conflict between Russia and Ukraine? Can it forge a new path? President Putin is going to come to India, and can India play a role in establishing peace in Russia and Ukraine?

[The reporter continued in English as follows.]

And Mr. President, what you would like to say about the Bangladesh issue, because we saw and it is evident that how the deep state of United State was involved in regime change during the Biden administration. And then Muhammad Yunus met Junior Soros also. So, what is you-—your point of view about the Bangladesh?

[The reporter asked a question in Hindi, which was translated by an interpreter as follows.]

My question is to you, Mr. President. How deep states of the U.S. wanted a regime change in Bangladesh. And Muhammad—Muhammad Yunus has been meeting with Junior Soros, and what is the role that the deep state played in the situation in Bangladesh?

President Trump. Well, there was no role for our deep state. It was—this is something that the Prime Minister has been working on for a long time and has been worked on for hundreds of years, frankly. I've been reading about it. But I will leave Bangladesh to the Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Modi. As far as the Russia-Ukraine conflict is concerned, I am very happy that President Trump has taken initiatives to restore peace and had the telephone calls with President Putin and President Zelenskyy. The world had this thinking that India somehow is a neutral country in this whole process, but this is not true. India has a side, and that side is of peace.

From the very first day, I have been talking about the importance of dialogue and diplomacy and a peaceful solution. And when I met President Putin in the presence of media, I had told him that this is not the era of war, and I have firm conviction that problems cannot be resolved on the battlefield. The two sides will have to come to the negotiating table.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

We support all efforts—we support all efforts in establishing peace, and the initiative that President Trump has taken, we welcome and support it.

Q. President Trump, what do—what is the role that you expect for India vis-à-vis China and——

Ambassador to the U.S. Vinay Kwatra of India. Can you let him translate, please? Just wait.

President Trump. I just want to add to that. We had a very good phone call yesterday with President Putin. It lasted maybe an hour and a half. It was excellent. And I think we went a long way toward getting a solution to the horrible war where so many people are being killed, especially soldiers on the battlefield. At least a million and a half soldiers have been killed on a ridiculous war that would have never happened if I were President, but we've got a long way to—I think we've got a long way to solving it.

Tomorrow there's a meeting in Munich, and then, next week, there's a meeting in Saudi Arabia—not with myself or President Putin, but with top officials, and Ukraine will be a part of it too. And we're going to see if we can end that war.

That war is a horrible war. It's a vicious, bloody war. We want to end it.

To your other question, that U.S. attorney was actually fired. I don't know if he or she resigned, but that U.S. attorney was fired.

Q. She stepped down.

President Trump. Okay. Go ahead.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

China/India

Q. Mr. President, what is the role that you expect India to play vis-à-vis U.S. competition with China——

The President. Wait 1 second. Say it.

Q. What is the role that you expect India to play vis-à-vis U.S. competition with China and in your broader vision for peace in the Middle East?

President Trump. Well, I think we're doing very well in our competition with everybody. I think you're going to see a nation that really is going forward at a very rapid pace. Our economy is going to be fantastic. We're doing things to make it that way. And we announced some very big elements today of success. I call it an element of success: reciprocal tariffs, so that if somebody charges us, we charge them the same amount, which has never been done in our country before. We've always been taken advantage of by other countries, and we allowed that to happen, foolishly. But we cannot—and not—we're not going to allow that any longer.

So I think we're going to do very well. We've been doing a last—they say the last 3 weeks was among the best 3 weeks ever for a start in a Presidency. There's never been anything like it. And when you see what we've been able to do in 3 weeks, people are really amazed. Even the Prime Minister mentioned it. I think other countries are looking at it.

But I just want to thank everybody for being here. This is a terrific man. We're going to make some wonderful trade deals for India and for the U.S.

And thank you all very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, everybody.