Trump mocks India’s PM Modi: ‘for five hours Modi continuously told me he built Library in Afghanistan’
Donald Trump has mocked India’s prime minister saying in his visit to India – for five hours Modi continuously and repeatedly told him that India constructed a library in war-torn Afghanistan.
In a press conference at a White House cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Mr Trump criticised a list of perceived injustices, including a lack of international support for the US in conflicts in the Middle East and Asia.
“When a country sends us 200 soldiers to Iraq, or sends us a hundred soldiers from a big country to Syria, or to Afghanistan, and then they tell me a hundred times, ‘Oh we sent you soldiers, we sent you soldiers’. And that’s one one-hundredth of the money that they’re taking advantage of,” Mr Trump told reporters.
“They’re just doing that to make me happy. Or to make past presidents happy. I’ve heard past presidents, ‘Well, they’re involved in the Afghanistan war, because they sent us a hundred soldiers’. And yet, it’s costing us billions and billions of dollars.”
The president then moved on to India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, who has promoted the importance of India-US ties in helping to stabilise Afghanistan.
“I could give you an example where, I get along very well with India and prime minister Modi, but he’s constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan. Ok a library. That’s like, you know what that is? It’s like five hours of what we spend, and he tells it, and he’s very smart, and we’re supposed to say, ‘Oh thank you for the library’.
“I don’t know who’s using it in Afghanistan, but it’s one of those things.”