Najam Interviewed on Trump’s Visit to India
Adil Najam, Dean of the Pardee School of Global Studies, was interviewed on various television news networks to comment on US President Donald Trump’s first state visit to India. The interviews aired on Hum News TV (24 February, 2020) and Aaj TV (25 February, 2020) focused on implications of President Trump’s visit toIndia and the statements he made during the trip that pertained to regional political dynamics in South Asia, including on India-Pakistan relations.
Najam commented that the visit was important not only for the foreign relations implications of these two major countries, but also for the domestic constituencies of the two leaders – Donald Trump in USA and Narendra Modi in India. He suggested that for President Trump the visit was an important signal in an election year to a very major and important diaspora community on Indian Americans and for Prime Minister Modi this major visit was a welcome and important distraction from the domestic turmoil and agitation that he has been facing around issues of minority rights.
In terms of international relations implications, Najam was of the opinion that the mention that Mr. Trump made to the importance of resolving the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan, and to his own good relations with Pakistan, were in fact motivated mostly by the US President’s interest in cementing a peace deal in Afghanistan with the Taliban. “Afghanistan,” said Najam, “is issue one, issue two, and issue three for this US President when it comes to Pakistan.”
Adil Najam is the Inaugural Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and was the former Vice Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). Read more about him here.