'Howdy, Modi!': PM Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump leave the Houston stadium (AFP)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday praised US President Donald Trump for showing him a thing or two about the "art" of negotiation. PM Modi, while addressing a 50,000-strong crowd at the 'Howdy, Modi!' event in Houston, said he would be speaking with the US President on several bilateral issues and that's where negotiation skills would come in handy.
"In the days to come, I will be speaking with President Trump. He often calls me a top negotiator, but he himself knows the art of the deal and I am learning from him," PM Modi said in his second, longer address to the crowd at Houston's NRG Football Stadium, one of the largest in the US.
In his first address, PM Modi allocated almost the entire speech to thanking the US President for taking bilateral ties to "new heights".
The Prime Minister, who will hold several bilateral meetings and address the United Nations General Assembly, held a roundtable with the CEOs of US-based energy companies on Saturday evening.
Hectic negotiations on energy trade are going on between India and the US, news agency Reuters reported. The deal under discussion with India would lower some tariffs on US produce and restore preferential treatment for some Indian exports to the US.
India - the sixth-largest buyer of US liquefied natural gas - is open to making purchases. In return, India wants the preferential trade status - withdrawn earlier this year - restored for a few more years, as PM Modi struggles to boost exports dampened by sluggish global demand made worse by the US-China trade war. New Delhi also wants market some of its farm products such as grapes to the US.
President Trump has repeatedly complained about India's high tariff rates, including a 50 per cent tariff on Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
The 'Howdy, Modi!' event gives PM Modi a chance to energise his relationship with Indian-Americans who are active political supporters. President Trump, meanwhile, faces a largely foreign-born audience and he has a strong political reason for coming at the 'Howdy, Modi!' event, according to a report in The Washington Post. "Democrats are making a big play for Texas in 2020... The rally provides Trump with access to a potential pool of Indian American voters that could turn out to be critical in next year's presidential elections," the newspaper reported.
Houston is a rare Democratic stronghold in Republican-dominated Texas and serves as the economic anchor of a state that will be critical to President Trump's 2020 re-election bid. Polls show tepid support by Indian-American voters, some 75 per cent of whom voted for his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in 2016.