An Invitation: India sent an invite to Donald Trump to be the Chief Guest on 26th January 2019

NEW DELHI: On Thursday India invited US President Donald Trump to be the chief guest for next year’s Republic Day parade and celebrations. If it happens, the Narendra Modi government might be tempted to tom-tom it as the biggest foreign policy coup in the past few years. 

As India is still awaiting an official response from the US, the latter is said to have indicated to the Indian government in the past few weeks that the Trump administration is favourably considering the invite sent by India in April this year. The invite was followed up with several rounds of diplomatic engagement over the issue.

For his sheer unpredictability, Trump’s presence here, if he chooses to come, promises to be even more dramatic than the one by his predecessor Barack Obama who was Modi’s first R-Day guest in 2015. Almost every major world capital has struggled to cope with the mercurial and irascible leader and India has learnt the hard way that it is hardly an exception.

Differences over trade tariffs, US reluctance to acknowledge India’s close energy and historical relations with Iran and India’s proposed deal for purchase of S-400 missile defence system from Russia has left many wondering if India even figures in Trump’s priority list like it certainly did in Obama’s.