Washington: US President Trump described Prime Minister Narendra Modi as his friend who told him that the US has got nothing out of Afghanistan, according to Bob Woodward’s new book “Fear: Trump in the White House.” The President has said the book is “fiction.” “Prime Minister Modi of India is a friend of mine, he (Trump) said. I like him very much,” Trump is quoted as saying in the book. According to Woodward, Trump made this comment during a Situation Room meeting in the White House on July 19 last year, nearly three weeks after he had a successful meeting with Modi on June 26.
“He (Modi) told me the US has gotten nothing out of Afghanistan. Nothing. Afghanistan has massive mineral wealth. We don’t take it like others - like China,’ Trump is quoted as saying.
Modi wanted Camp David dinner with Trump
Modi wanted to have his first meeting with Trump in June 2017 at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland, according to Woodward's latest book. The President has said the book is “fiction.” “Modi wanted to go to Camp David and have dinner, bond with Trump,” the author writes. The event ended up as a “‘no-frills’ cocktail reception” and a “working dinner” at the White House, writes Woodward. Modi’s June 2017 visit was preceded by two high-profile heads of state whom Trump had hosted after taking over as President in January. The President had hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago, a resort he owns in Florida, in April 2017. In February 2017, he had hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe there.
Counterweight to Pakistan
“…Modi, who has been courted assiduously by Obama, was coming for the visit to..see Trump. India was the counterweight to Pakistan, which was giving the new administration as much trouble as it had given previous ones by hedging maddeningly on terrorism,” Woodward writes. When Reince Priebus, the then chief of staff, said the Camp David meet was “not in the cards”, McMaster is said to have flown into a rage. “He [McMaster] understood the strategic importance of India, a sworn enemy of Pakistan. Outreach and strong relations were essential,” the author writes.
While McMaster was apparently trying to stitch together a strategy for Afghanistan in the face of stiff opposition from Trump to continuing military presence there, Modi fanned Trump’s instinct, according to the book. Modi, apparently, told Trump that the US was getting “nothing” from Afghanistan. Trump’s argument has always been that. That Trump quoted Modi to buttress his argument against continued engagement in Afghanistan in White House meetings.
