According to Indian PM Modi, relations with the US are still “very positive.”

Following US President Donald Trump’s reaffirmation of their personal friendship and his downplaying of his previous comments about “losing India” to China, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated on Saturday that Washington and New Delhi still had “very positive” connections.

The trade is tense after Washington placed tariffs of up to 50% on Indian imports, claiming that New Delhi was buying Russian oil to support Moscow’s lethal attacks on Ukraine.

Right-wing populists Trump and Modi, however, have been close since the US president’s first term.

India and the United States have a “very positive and forward-looking comprehensive and global strategic partnership,” Modi wrote on X, adding that he “deeply appreciates and fully reciprocates President Trump’s sentiments and positive assessment of our ties.”

Trump previously declared to reporters that he “will always be friends with Modi.”

“The relationship between the United States and India is unique. Trump downplayed his earlier comments about “losing India” to China, saying, “There is nothing to worry about.”

As a sign of a thaw between the two Asian heavyweights, Modi travelled to China for the first time in seven years last week to attend a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting.

Trump has come off as annoyed in New Delhi as he tries to claim credit for his alleged Nobel Prize-worthy diplomacy in mediating peace between India and Pakistan after the two nuclear-armed neighbours engaged in their deadliest conflict in decades in May.

Since then, India, which vehemently opposes any outside intervention on the Kashmir dispute, has ignored Trump.