Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Amid ongoing attempts to bring the bilateral India-US trade relations back on rails, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has applauded US President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan seeking to end the two-year-old, ongoing war between Israel and the terror group-controlled Gaza Strip in the Middle East.
The fierce war erupted after Hamas invaded Southern Israel on October 7, 2023, massacred some 1200 Israeli and foreign tourists, and returned to the Gaza Strip with 250-odd hostages. In its retaliatory action, Israel killed more than 67,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and has almost completely levelled the enclave that housed nearly 2.3 million people, most of whom are now either refugees in the Gaza Strip or in other countries.
PM Modi spoke to Donald Trump on Thursday, congratulating him on the Gaza peace plan and also reviewing the “good progress” in bilateral trade negotiations, the media reported on Friday.
“Spoke to my friend, President Trump, and congratulated him on the historic Gaza peace plan. Also reviewed the good progress achieved in trade negotiations. Agreed to stay in close touch over the coming weeks,” PM Modi posted on social media platform X.
The ongoing negotiations for the India-US bilateral trade agreement (BTA) had come to a standstill after Trump imposed a total of 50 percent tariffs on most Indian goods in August. But there has been some movement since the recent visits of Union Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to New York and their meetings with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, respectively.
“No date has been set yet for the next negotiating round. The US administration is currently in a shutdown mode as the bill funding government services in October and beyond has not yet been passed in US Congress because of disagreement between Republican and Democratic lawmakers. Hopefully, the next round of meeting between the negotiating teams will happen soon,” an official said.
PM Modi’s acknowledgment of President Trump’s role in the Gaza peace plan is expected to soothe frayed nerves in Washington after India refused to give the US credit for ending the Operation Sindoor, the military conflict with Pakistan, in May 2025.