NATO to take over coordination of arms deliveries to Ukraine ahead of possible Trump win

WASHINGTON: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will try to rekindle his bromance with Donald Trump — and avoid the US president’s wrath on tariffs and immigration — when they meet on Thursday at the White House.
Modi will also hold a joint press conference with Trump, the White House said — a rare move from the Indian leader, who is a prolific social media user but seldom takes questions from reporters.
The latest in a series of foreign leaders beating an early path to the Oval Office door since the Republican’s return to power, Modi shared good relations with Trump during his first term.
The premier has offered quick tariff concessions ahead of his visit, with New Delhi slashing duties on high-end motorcycles — a boost to Harley-Davidson, the iconic American manufacturer whose struggles in India have irked Trump.
India also accepted a US military flight carrying 100 shackled migrants last week as part of Trump’s immigration overhaul, and New Delhi has vowed its own “strong crackdown” on illegal migration.
India’s top career diplomat Vikram Misri said last week that there had been a “very close rapport” between the leaders, although their ties have so far failed to bring a breakthrough on a long-sought bilateral trade deal.
Modi was among the first to congratulate “good friend” Trump after his November election win.
For nearly three decades, US presidents from both parties have prioritized building ties with India, seeing a natural partner against a rising China.
But Trump has also raged against India over trade, the biggest foreign policy preoccupation of his new term, in the past calling the world’s fifth-largest economy the “biggest tariff abuser.”
Former property tycoon Trump has unapologetically weaponized tariffs against friends and foes since his return.


Modi “has prepared for this, and he is seeking to preempt Trump’s anger,” said Lisa Curtis, the National Security Council director on South Asia during Trump’s first term.
The Indian premier’s Hindu-nationalist government has meanwhile obliged Trump on another top priority: deporting undocumented immigrants.
While public attention has focused on Latin American arrivals, India is the third source of undocumented immigrants in the United States after Mexico and El Salvador.
Indian activists burned an effigy of Trump last week after the migrants on the US plane were flown back in shackles the whole journey, while the opposition accused Modi of weakness.
One thing Modi is likely to avoid, however, is any focus on his record on the rights of Muslims and other minorities.
Trump is unlikely to highlight an issue on which former president Joe Biden’s administration offered gentle critiques.
Modi is the fourth world leader to visit Trump since his return, following the prime ministers of Israel and Japan and the king of Jordan.
Modi assiduously courted Trump during his first term. The two share much in common, with both campaigning on promises to promote the interests of their countries’ majority communities over minorities and both doggedly pursuing critics.
In February 2020, Modi invited Trump before a cheering crowd of more than 100,000 people to inaugurate the world’s largest cricket stadium in his home state of Gujarat.
Trump could visit India later this year for a scheduled summit of the Quad — a four-way grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

BERLIN: An Afghan man with suspected militant motives goes on trial in Germany on Thursday over a knife attack that killed a policeman and wounded five others at an anti-Islam rally last year.
The hearings will start less than two weeks before German elections and at a time of heated debate about immigration and public security following a spate of deadly attacks blamed on asylum seekers.
The defendant, only partially named as Sulaiman A., allegedly used a large hunting knife in a stabbing rampage targeting a rally by Pax Europa, a campaign group against radical Islam, in the western city of Mannheim.
The knifeman initially attacked a speaker and other demonstrators, then stabbed a police officer who rushed in to help, and who died later the same day of his wounds.
Sulaiman A., who was aged 25 at the time of the May 31 attack, was shot and wounded at the site before he was also arrested.
While the suspect is not being tried as a terrorist, prosecutors have charged that he sympathized with the Islamic State (IS) group.
The defendant faces charges of murder, attempted murder and dangerous bodily harm in a trial held in a high-security prison in Stuttgart.
According to German media reports, the Afghan suspect arrived in Germany overland in 2013 aged just 14, together with his brother but without their parents.
They were denied asylum but, as unaccompanied minors, granted stays of deportation and permanent residency, and initially placed in care facilities, reports have said.
Prosecutors charge that Sulaiman A. had decided to mount the attack by early May at the latest.


Many Germans were especially shocked as a video circulating online showed the 29-year-old police officer being repeatedly stabbed in the head.
Several attacks since have further inflamed debate on the influx of several million refugees and migrants over the past decade.
In August, three people died and five were wounded in a knife rampage claimed by IS in the western city of Solingen, in which the Syrian suspect had been slated for deportation but evaded law enforcement.
In December, a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg killed six people and wounded hundreds.
A Saudi man, said by officials to hold far-right beliefs and to be mentally disturbed, was arrested next to the heavily damaged SUV.
The most recent attack, targeting a nursery school group in the southern city of Aschaffenburg, claimed two lives, including that of a two-year-old child.
A 28-year-old Afghan man, whom officials describe as having a history of mental health issues, was arrested close to the scene.
The attacks have driven rising support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is polling around 20 percent ahead of February 23 national elections.
In the wake of the latest attack, the center-right CDU, currently leading in polls on around 30 percent, demanded a crackdown against irregular migration.
But CDU leader Friedrich Merz sparked outrage by bringing a resolution on the issue to parliament which passed with AfD votes, breaching a long-standing taboo against cooperating with the far right.
Human rights groups and other critics charged that the proposed steps would not have prevented the attacks and would penalize innocent refugees and breach EU law.