By Jill Colvin and Jonathan Lemire, AHMEDABAD India
Kicking
off a whirlwind 36-hour visit to India that emphasizes pageantry over policy,
President Donald Trump received a warm welcome Monday on the subcontinent,
including a mega-rally, meant to reaffirm ties while providing enviable
overseas imagery for a president in a re-election year.
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Security officers stand behind a glass enclosure next to
empty seats expected to be taken by U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime
Minister Narendra Modi at Sardar Patel stadium in Ahmedabad, India, Monday,
Feb. 24, 2020. Hundreds of thousands of people in the north-western city are
expected to greet Trump on Monday for a road show leading to a massive rally at
what has been touted as the world’s largest cricket stadium.
As Air Force One
touched down in Ahmedabad in western India, the final preparations were
underway for that day’s enviable trio of presidential photo-ops: a visit to a
former home of independence leader Mohandas Gandhi, a rally at the world’s
second-largest stadium and a trip to the famed Taj Mahal.
Dancers in traditional
attire, dancers and drummers lined the red carpet rolled out at the stairs of
the presidential aircraft as Trump was poised to receive the raucous reception
that has eluded him on many foreign trips, some of which have featured massive
protests and icy handshakes from world leaders. In India, he instead received a
warm embrace — literally —from the ideologically aligned and hug-loving Prime
Minister Narendra Modi.
The sun-baked city of
Ahmedabad jostled with activity the day before Trump’s arrival as workers
cleaned roads, planted flowers and hoisted hundreds of billboards featuring the
president and first lady Melania Trump, Hundreds of thousands of people in the north-western
city are expected to greet Trump for a road show leading to a massive rally at
what has been touted as the world’s largest cricket stadium.
Trump’s motorcade will
travel amid cheers from a battery of carefully picked and vetted Modi loyalists
and workers from his Bharatiya Janata Party who will stand for hours alongside
the neatly manicured 22-kilometer (14-mile) stretch of road to accord the
president a grand welcome on his way to the newly constructed stadium. Tens of
thousands of police officers will be on hand to keep security tight and a new
wall has come up in front of a slum, apparently to hide it from presidential
passers-by.
“I hear it’s going to
be a big event. Some people say the biggest event they’ve ever had in India,”
Trump said before he departed Washington. “That’s what the prime minister told
me — this will be the biggest event they’ve ever had.”
The “Namaste Trump”
rally will be, in a way, the back half of home-and-home events for Modi and
Trump who attended a “Howdy Modi” rally in Houston last year that drew 50,000
people.
Trump’s foreign visits
have typically been light on sightseeing, but this time, the president and
first lady Melania Trump are to visit the Taj Mahal. Stories in local media
warn of the monkeys that inhabit the landmark pestering tourists for food and,
on occasion, menacing both visitors and slingshot-carrying security guards.
Images of American
presidents being feted on the world stage stand in contrast to those of their
rivals in the opposing party slogging through diners in early-voting states and
clashing in debate.
This trip, in
particular, reflects a Trump campaign strategy to showcase him in his
presidential role during short, carefully managed trips that provide
counter-programming to the Democrats’ primary contest and produce the kinds of
visuals his campaign can use in future ads. His aides also believe the visit
could help the president woo tens of thousands of Indian-American voters before
the November election.
The visit also comes at
a crucial moment for Modi, a fellow populist, who has provided over a steep
economic downtown and unfulfilled campaign promises about job creation. When
Trump touches down in Delhi late Monday, he will find a bustling, noisy, colourful
capital that also is dotted with half-finished construction projects stalled
due to disappearing funding.
The president on
Tuesday will conclude his whirlwind visit to India with a day in the capital,
complete with a gala dinner meetings with Modi over stalled trade talks between
the two nations.
The two nations are
closely allied, in part to act as a bulwark against the rising influence of
nearby China, but trade tensions between the two countries have escalated since
the Trump administration imposed tariffs on steel and aluminium from India.
India responded with higher penalties on agricultural goods and restrictions on
U.S. medical devices. The U.S. retaliated by removing India from a decades-old
preferential trade program.
Eyes will also be on
whether Trump weighs on in the protests enveloping India over its Citizenship
Amendment Act. It provides a fast track to naturalization for some migrants who
entered the country illegally while fleeing religious persecution, but excludes
Muslims, raising fears that the country is moving toward a religious
citizenship test. Passage has prompted large-scale protests and a violent
crackdown.
Typically, Trump has
not publicly rebuked world leaders for human rights abuses during his overseas
trips. But one senior administration official said the U.S. is concerned about
the situation and that Trump will tell Modi the world is looking to India to
continue to uphold its democratic traditions and respect religious minorities. - AP
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