President Trump will visit India at the end of the month, the White House said Monday.
The visit reflects India’s increasing economic power and Trump’s close relationship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a pro-market nationalist. Modi will host Trump and first lady Melania Trump on Feb. 24-25 in the northern capital of New Delhi and the western city Ahmedabad.
The White House emphasized the Ahmedabad leg in the prime minister’s home state Gujarat. “During a phone call over the weekend, President Trump and Prime Minister Modi agreed the trip will further strengthen the United States-India strategic partnership and highlight the strong and enduring bonds between the American and Indian people,” the White House said in a statement.
“The President and The First Lady will travel to New Delhi and Ahmedabad, which is in Prime Minister Modi’s home state of Gujarat and played such an important role in Mahatma Gandhi’s life and leadership of the Indian independence movement.”
The visit follows Modi’s tour of the United States in September, during which he met with Trump in New York and co-headlined with Trump a massive 50,000-person rally in Houston called “Howdy, Modi,” attended largely by Indian-Americans.
The trip will be Trump’s second overseas this year, after a two-day visit to Switzerland for the World Economic Forum in Davos. In 2005, the US government rejected Modi, at the time chief minister of Gujarat, for a visa to visit the United States over his actions during anti-Muslim riots in 2002.
Trump built a reputation last year for being travel averse. In August, he scrapped a trip to Poland over the incoming Hurricane Dorian and a trip to Denmark citing the nation’s refusal to sell him Greenland.