US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Modi will speak with each other at 11:30 PM IST
US President Donald Trump will speak with Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the phone tonight, the White House has said. "The President speaks with Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi," the White House said as it released President Trump's schedule for today.
President Trump and Prime Minister Modi will speak with each other at 1 PM Washington DC time, which is 11:30 PM IST.
PM Modi will be the fifth foreign leader who Donald Trump will have spoken with over the phone since being sworn-in as the US President on January 20. On January 21, President Trump spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican Premier Pena Nieto.
On Sunday, he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and yesterday he had a telephonic conversation with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
PM Modi will be the fifth foreign leader who President Trump will have spoken with over the phone
After his historic victory in the November 8 general elections in the United States, Prime Minister Modi was among the first few world leaders to have congratulated Donald Trump.
During his election campaign, India is among the few countries in addition to Israel with whom Mr Trump had spoken of strengthening ties if elected to power.
At a charity event organised by a group calling itself the Hindu Republican Coalition, Donald Trump, as the then Republican presidential nominee, had praised India's fast growth rate and Prime Minister Modi's bureaucratic and economic reforms.
"Under a Trump Administration, we are going to become even better friends, in fact I would take the term better out and we would be best friends," Mr Trump had told a cheering crowd of Indian-Americans in Edison, New Jersey.
"We are going to have a phenomenal future together," Mr Trump had said and praised PM Modi for India's growth trajectory which is propelled with a series of economic reforms and reforming the bureaucracy, which he said is required in the US too.
"I look forward to working with Prime Minister Modi," he had said, adding that PM Modi is very energetic.
"India is key and a key strategic ally," he had said.