Modi is great, but good friend Donald can destroy his political career

“Modi is a great man. He loves Trump… Mow I do not know if the word ‘love’… I do not want you to take that… I don’t want to destroy his political career,” mulled US president Donald Trump at the White House on 17 October, Wednesday.

He had started by saying that Modi had called to say that Trump was great and that India would stop buying oil from Russia, before he corrected himself and added that that Modi is a great man — something that the US president repeats often enough, to the delight of Modi fans.

It is not easy to decipher what President Trump says at the best of times, but he does usually manage to at least signal what he wants to. In this case, however, he baffled observers by saying that he did not want to destroy Modi’s political career.

Whatever could he have meant? Why would Modi’s career end if he called the US president ‘great’? Was it related to Trump’s use of the word ‘love’, and did the word carry any special significance that only Modi and Trump are aware of?

It was certainly inappropriate, because whether world leaders love each other or not, they scarcely talk about it in public. It made people uneasy because it suggested to fertile minds that the American deep state had more information about ‘love’ than Trump or Modi would divulge.

In his first term as president too, Trump had embarrassed Modi by petulantly letting out to the media that Modi had called to inform him that India had reduced the import duty on the Harley Davidson bike made in the US. It was too little and too late, the US president had then suggested.

Since Operation Sindoor in May 2025, the US president has claimed on apparently 52 occasions in five different countries that he had brokered the ceasefire between India and Pakistan. This has been hotly contested by Indian spokespersons, but PM Modi himself has maintained a conspicuous silence.

What is problematic this time is that the ministry of external affairs (MEA) flatly denied any knowledge of a telephonic conversation between PM Modi and President Trump. Nor did the MEA confirm or deny the US president’s claim that the PM had conveyed the Indian government’s ‘decision’ of not buying oil from Russia.

By disclosing it, the US president once again managed to embarrass the Indian prime minister, because no such decision has been announced yet by the Indian government or local oil companies. Even as the media in India frowned and wondered if this was a breach of confidence or a breach of protocol, they stopped short of asking whether it was Trump who was lying or the MEA.

If there was no conversation between the two, how did PM Modi convey the decision on Russian oil? The two leaders last spoke, according to official statements, on 9 October.

The US ambassador-designate Sergio Gor did fly into New Delhi and met with PM Modi, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar and national security advisor Ajit Doval on 11 October before flying back to Washington on 14 October, meeting with the POTUS on 15 October — the day Trump made his statement.

The MEA declined to comment on whether Gor had discussed the issue with PM Modi.

Gor did tell US senators at his confirmation hearing on 11 September 2025 that the US president had made it “crystal clear” that India would have to end all imports of Russian oil, which make up about 35–40 per cent of India’s oil imports.

US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick had also said that trade negotiations would be resolved “once” India stopped buying Russian oil, suggesting this was a pre-condition for any trade deal. “India has to basically open its market, and stop buying Russian oil,” Lutnick told reporters on 12 September.

Not only did Trump impose an additional penal tariff of 25 per cent on exports to the US from India for buying Russian oil, he may also be aware of the cost of capitulation for its PM, Narendra Modi, on the domestic front.

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, who had earlier taunted the PM with ‘Surrender Modi’, took to X to say, “PM Modi is frightened of Trump.

“1. Allows Trump to decide and announce that India will not buy Russian oil.

2. keeps sending congratulatory messages despite repeated snubs.

3. Cancelled the finance minister’s visit to America.

4. Skipped Sharm el-Sheikh

5. Doesn’t contradict him on Operation Sindoor.”

While the Indian government has consistently denied it would bow to pressure, PSUs have dropped import of Russian oil by as much as 45 per cent between June and September 2025. Yet Reuters reported today the American claim that oil imports from Russia had dropped to 50 per cent — but that local corroboration is absent.

India’s import of Russian oil had dramatically doubled between 2022 and 2023, while imports from Iraq and Saudi Arabia, traditionally India’s biggest oil suppliers, declined — and the Ukraine unrest and other factors hit the rupee where it hurt.

And now, by all accounts, India seems ready to accept the terms laid down by the US for a trade deal and turn the wheel of time back again.