Trump-Announced Meeting with PM Modi Did Not Take Place
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had indicated plans to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to New York, but the meeting did not take place.
PM Modi’s trip was a brief 55 hours filled with engagements, while Trump was focused on his campaign, just six weeks away from the election.
On Saturday, PM Modi participated in the Quad summit with President Joe Biden and Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese of Australia and Fumio Kishida of Japan. His schedule on Monday was consumed by his address at the Summit of the Future and meetings with various leaders before his departure.
On Sunday, PM Modi addressed a diaspora rally in a New York suburb and had some time for additional meetings later in the day. However, Trump was occupied with his own rally in North Carolina.
Later that Sunday, PM Modi met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Nepal’s Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli, and Kuwait’s Crown Prince Sheikh Sabah al-Khalid.
There were also media speculations about a potential meeting between PM Modi and Mohammad Yunus, the de facto Prime Minister of Bangladesh, during the UN Summit. Some reports suggested Modi was snubbing Yunus by not agreeing to meet.
Timing played a significant role in these missed opportunities. When questioned about the unfulfilled meeting, India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri stated, “The Prime Minister is leaving in a few minutes from now. The chief advisor of Bangladesh is not here yet, so there hasn’t been any possibility of a meeting on this occasion.”
Instead of Yunus, Touhid Hossain, the foreign affairs adviser in Bangladesh’s interim government, spoke at the summit on Monday. After meeting with Presidents Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and To Lam of Vietnam that day, PM Modi also found time for discussions with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, and Armenia’s President Nikol Pashinyan.
