New Delhi, Feb 24: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to the US “went very well” and underlined that the chemistry between him and President Donald Trump in Washington was also good.Prime Minister Modi had paid an official working visit to the US on February 12-13 during which the two leaders held discussions on a broad range of bilateral issues.
“I have been doing this all my life, so I have some reference points, and some experiences as a comparative assessment. And, I would say with all objectivity, I thought, it went very well, and for a variety of reasons,” Jaishankar said in response to a query on the Modi’s US visit during an interaction at an event here late evening.
The external affairs minister said people know that PM Modi is a “very strong nationalist, and he sort of radiates that”.
“Trump is an American nationalist, and I think in many ways nationalists kind of respect each other. They are very clear-eyed. They are in it for their country, Trump accepts that Modi is in it for India, Modi accepts that Trump is in it for America,” he said.
“But, the purpose of the meeting is to say, ok, how do we find that something works, what is the common ground, something we can do together which makes both of us stronger,” Jaishankar said.
The interaction was moderated by Sanjeev Sanyal, member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister during the DU Literature Festival, hosted at the Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC).
“The second I felt was… the chemistry was good. Again, Trump being somewhat unusual, there are a lot of other leaders in the world, with whom he has not necessarily a positive history. Now the case of Modiji, it’s not the case. He (Trump) had a great visit (to India), he remembered,” the external affairs minister said.
Jaishankar also made a reference to a picture book on the first term of President Trump, and said, he was told the Trump “himself selected pictures after his term had ended”.
And, maximum number of pictures were “about India”, he said, adding it also had a picture of the ‘Namaste Trump’ event held at Motera Stadium in Ahemdabad during his visit in 2020.
“Clearly, he had a very good kind of a memory and feeling about the earlier term,” Jaishankar said.
President Trump appears to have a vision of what America’s interests are, what he wants and he wants from the relation with us. We have the same. We too have demands of…, opportunities with America. So, I think there was a very open discussion about all of these, and I must say, it was conducted with a lot of god humour, geniality, cordiality,” he said.
The discussion was over Jaishankar’s book ‘What Bharat Matters’, published last year.
The external affairs minister was asked about his reference to epic Ramayana in the context of the book, and he spoke of Lord Ram’s skills and Lord Hanuman’s strategic thoughts displayed during his visit to Lanka to rescue Mata Sita from Ravana.
“Today when we look at the world and we assess other countries, Ravana is an example of, what I would say strategic complacency. Brahma had given him a wish… he was arrogant enough to think that human beings don’t matter at all.
“…Then again, his quest…lack of restraint. The fact, he antagonises, not able…he’s carried away, the hubris. So, I think, each of these characteristics when you apply them to the real world, you can see something familiar out there,” he said without elaborating.