US President Donald Trump calls PM Narendra Modi ‘very terrific man’

New York: Even as he praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “a very terrific man”, US President Donald Trump stuck to his threats of “a very strong tariff system” against anyone over the Ukraine-Russia war, and gave an embellished narrative of his role in ending the Operation Sindoor conflict.

With the 25 per cent punitive sanctions for buying Russian oil to hit India on Wednesday, Trump defied logic and said on Tuesday that he could use tariffs as a weapon to force an end to the war in Ukraine, but not right now against Russia, the country that started the conflict.

In the same vein of twisted logic, the Department of Homeland Security on Monday circulated a draft notification that it was imposing on Wednesday a 25 per cent tariff on India to address “threats to the United States by the Government of the Russian Federation”.

That is to be on top of the 25 per cent announced earlier, with exemptions for some items like electronics and pharmaceuticals.

Speaking to reporters at the end of his open cabinet meeting on Tuesday, he said he could use “a very strong tariff system that’s very costly to Russia or Ukraine, or whoever we have”. He said his campaign to end the Ukraine War “will not be a world war, but it could be an economic war, and an economic war is going to be bad, and it’s going to be bad for Russia”.

But, he added, “And I don’t want that now”.

“It’s very, very serious, what I have in mind if I have to do it,” he said. He has set different deadlines for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to meet Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky for negotiations or face severe consequences.

One of them announced after his August summit with Putin was to expire on Thursday, but Trump extended it last Friday to September 5. (IANS)

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