Trump to meet PM Modi at G7 in France amid claims Iran deal is done and will be signed by Vance
TOI correspondent from Washington An extraordinary and unprecedented spectacle of both US President Donald Trump and his vice JD Vance visiting Europe within hours of
TOI correspondent from Washington An extraordinary and unprecedented spectacle of both US President Donald Trump and his vice JD Vance visiting Europe within hours of each other for engagements within miles of each other is on the cards as part of the MAGA supremo’s improvised, spur-of-the moment foreign policy moves that has the diplomatic world in a tizzyWhile the White House announced that Trump will be traveling to the French spa town of Evian-les-Bains on the shores of Lake Geneva to attend the 52nd G7 Summit from June 15 to June 17, Trump himself revealed that a deal with Iran will be signed on Sunday, after indicating veep JD Vance will be flying out to Geneva to do the honors. Iran has not confirmed its attendance.“The Deal is scheduled to get signed tomorrow, and immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL,” Trump declared on Truth Social.He did not reveal much else about the terms of the deal – which appears more like an interim MOU extending the ceasefire to enable more talks than any lasting agreement – other than finessing a US climbdown on the nuclear aspect.Trump claimed the deal would ensure Iran will not get nuclear weapons, something Tehran had already forsworn before the US and Israel claimed it was clandestinely developing one and therefore should not have access to any enriched uranium, not even for civilian use purposes.“At the appropriate time, when all is calm, we will go in and get the Nuclear Dust, buried deep under the powerful sunken granite mountains, thanks to our beautiful B-2 Bombers and their brilliant pilots, and downblend and destroy it, whether in Iran, or the United States,” Trump wrote, indicating that the nuclear can is being kicked down the road.“Hopefully, this process will all work out quickly, easily, and smoothly.If it doesn’t, we have the ultimate alternative, hopefully never to be used again!” he added ominously.US officials also confirmed that Trump will be meeting PM Narendra Modi for a bilateral meeting, their first in 14 months since they last met in Washington DC in February 2025.Despite frequent talking up of their personal warmth and friendship – mainly from Trump and his surrogates – US-India ties in this period has been thrown into the shredder with differences over Trump’s role in bringing about a truce in the four-day India-Pakistan war, trade and tariff issues, and more recently, US attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf that killed three Indian sailors and the Trump administration’s decision to nix access to Anthropic’s advanced AI model to all foreign nationals.Trump has also irked New Delhi with his fanboy praise of Pakistan's military leader Asim Munir, who India blames for terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. The trainwreck was compounded by a phone call over the weekend from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar in which Rubio implicitly defended the American attack on ships in the Persian Gulf that killed three Indian sailors.
The BriefWire