Trump’s India Trip: Full Stadium and Mostly Empty Promises

If there’s one thing everyone knows about President Donald Trump, it’s that he loves a captive audience — the larger and more enthusiastic, the better. This is one of the many things he has in common with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Next week, both of them will have a chance to indulge their shared passion. Trump is to visit New Delhi and Modi’s home town of Ahmedabad — and the president has said that he expects seven million people to greet him there, although Twitter was swift to note that that would be 80% of the city’s population, which is perhaps unlikely. What is certain is that Modi and Trump will headline a rally opening Ahmedabad’s new cricket stadium, the world’s largest, in front of 125,000 people. Like most Americans, Trump might be a trifle unsure about what cricket is, but both leaders considered the last rally they attended together, in Houston last year, a roaring success.

Aside from putting the two adulation-hungry politicians in front of crowds, the policy goals of Trump’s trip are unclear. Some in New Delhi hope that it will restore a bit of dynamism to the relationship, given that India’s stock in Washington is not very high at the moment. Modi’s embrace of Trump has served to alienate many Democrats, including many of the contenders for the party’s presidential nomination. But even some Republicans have expressed dismay at recent divisive actions by Modi’s government. Recently, Senator Lindsey Graham and India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, had an unusually testy exchange at the Munich Security Conference about Kashmir.