Washington, DC [US], September 18 : Former US President and Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday (local time) heaped praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him a "fantastic man." He also confirmed that he would be meeting PM Modi next week during his visit to the US.
"He (Modi) happens to be coming to meet me next week, and Modi, he's fantastic. I mean, fantastic man. A lot of these leaders are fantastic," Trump said ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US.
"These people are the sharpest people. They're not a little bit backwards...You know the expression, they're at the top of their game, and they use it against us. But India is very tough. Brazil is very tough... China is the toughest of all, but we were taking care of China with the tariffs," he added.
Speaking at a campaign event, Trump said that his government would engage in a reciprocal trade charging the same amount of tariffs as the other countries did.
"You mean they charge us, we charge them? You got me... So we're going to call it the Trump Reciprocal Trade Act, or I'll leave the name Trump off as long as we do it," Trump said.
Highlighting his reciprocal trade policies, Trump stated, "If anybody charges us 10 cents, if they charge us USD 2, if they charge us 100 per cent, 250 per cent we charge them the same thing, and you know what's going to happen. Everything's going to disappear, and we're going to end up having free trade again. if it doesn't disappear. We're going to take in a lot of money."
PM Modi will be visiting the US from September 21 to 23. He will attend the annual Quad Summit, which will be hosted by US President Joe Biden in Delaware.
During the US visit, PM Modi will also address the 'Summit of the Future' at the United Nations General Assembly.
According to the External Affairs Ministry, he will be meeting a gathering of the Indian community in New York on September 22.
Both PM Modi and Donald Trump last met in February 2020, when the then US President visited India. Trump was welcomed with a 'Namaste Trump' event in Ahmedabad, which also marked the opening of the world's largest cricket stadium.
During PM Modi's visit to the US in 2019, he participated in a "Howdy, Modi!" rally in Texas.