Proposal was turned down, says new book

Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted to have his first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in June 2017 at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland, according to American journalist and author Bob Woodward.

Mr. Woodward’s latest book — Fear: Trump in the White House — hit the market on Tuesday. The President has said the book is “fiction”.

“Modi wanted to go to Camp David and have dinner, bond with Trump,” the author writes. The event ended up as a “‘no-frills’ cocktail reception” and a “working dinner” at the White House, writes Mr. Woodward.

Camp David is a retreat of the U.S. President, 100 km northeast of Washington, in Maryland.

Mr. Modi’s June 2017 visit was preceded by two high-profile heads of state whom Mr. Trump had hosted after taking over as President in January. The President had hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago, a resort he owns in Florida, in April 2017. In February, 2017, he had hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe there.

Mr. Modi’s alleged desire to be hosted at Camp David comes into discussion in the book in the context of former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster’s hot temper.

Counterweight to Pakistan

“…Modi, who has been courted assiduously by Obama, was coming for the visit to..see Trump. India was the counterweight to Pakistan, which was giving the new administration as much trouble as it had given previous ones by hedging maddeningly on terrorism,” Mr. Woodward writes.

When Reince Priebus, the then chief of staff, said the Camp David meet was “not in the cards”, Mr. McMaster is said to have flown into a rage. “He [McMaster] understood the strategic importance of India, a sworn enemy of Pakistan. Outreach and strong relations were essential,” the author writes.

While Mr. McMaster was apparently trying to stitch together a strategy for Afghanistan in the face of stiff opposition from Mr. Trump to continuing military presence there, Mr. Modi fanned Mr. Trump’s instinct, according to the book.

Mr. Modi, apparently, told Mr. Trump that the U.S. was getting “nothing” from Afghanistan. Mr. Trump’s argument has always been that. That Mr. Trump quoted Mr. Modi to buttress his argument against continued engagement in Afghanistan in White House meetings has been reported earlier.