The consensus is that Donald Trump's call was an offer to reset that relationship after months of pouting by an American President miffed over India's refusal to play ball on several issues,

New Delhi:US President Donald Trump's late-night phone call to Prime Minister Narendra Modi - ostensibly to wish the PM on his 75th birthday - seems to have injected fresh momentum into a bilateral relationship battered by stand-offs over the 50 per cent tariffs on Indian exports, a faltering trade deal.

White House grumbling that India's purchase of Russian oil, despite sanctions, is feeding the war on Ukraine.

The consensus is the call was an offer to reset that relationship after months of pouting over India's refusal to play ball on several issues, ranging from saying 'yes, Trump was responsible for the Op Sindoor ceasefire (which he was not)' to endorsing him for a Nobel Peace Prize, and the tariff row.

All of this cast quite the pall over what most analysts believe is 'one of the most consequential partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region, if not the world', culminating, perhaps, in Donald Trump denouncing the Indian economy - the fourth largest globally in nominal GDP terms - as "dead".

Mr Trump's phone call, therefore, was significant but there is more to the story. 

Source:Ndtv