World
Trump’s Return Has Unnerved World Leaders. But Not India.
Over the past year, a pair of legal bombshells have put India’s growing relationship with the United States to one of its biggest tests yet.
Just as the two sides were announcing unprecedented expansions in defense and technology ties, U.S. prosecutors accused Indian government agents of plotting to assassinate an American citizen on U.S. soil.
Months later, the Justice Department filed fraud and bribery charges against India’s most prominent business mogul, whose enterprises have soared to dizzying heights on the back of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s power.
Still, the relationship has held. After decades of mutual suspicion between the two countries, said Eric Garcetti, the departing U.S. ambassador to India, the fact that now nothing seems to derail their ties is proof of their strength.
“I don’t think there is anything out there big enough to threaten the trajectory of the U.S.-India relations,” Mr. Garcetti said on Saturday in an interview at the embassy in New Delhi, two days before President Biden leaves office and Donald J. Trump is sworn in as his successor.
“This is incredibly resilient and almost inevitable,” Mr. Garcetti added. “It’s really the pace and the progress that’s not inevitable, like how quickly we get there.”
The Biden administration’s doubling down on the relationship with India came after nearly two decades of efforts to shed Cold War-era suspicions that had culminated with U.S. sanctions on India’s nuclear program in 1998.
Washington sees great potential in India as a geopolitical counterweight to an increasingly assertive China. Already the world’s largest democracy, India took over from China as the world’s most populous nation in 2023. India’s demographic advantages and growing technological capacity could help diversify global supply chains away from China, a priority of the United States and other major powers.
Now comes Mr. Trump’s second presidency, with its America-first orientation and threats of steep tariffs on trading partners. While leaders of many countries are unnerved, Indian officials insist that they are not among them.
S. Jaishankar, the foreign minister, has said India enjoyed “a positive political relationship with Trump” that it hopes will only deepen. As he attended the opening of a U.S. Consulate on Friday in the tech hub of Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore, Mr. Jaishankar quoted Mr. Modi as saying that the two countries were overcoming “the hesitations of history.”
Mr. Modi has enjoyed a strong rapport with Mr. Trump, an important factor because of the incoming president’s personal approach to international relations. During Mr. Trump’s first term, Mr. Modi hosted him at a grand rally in his home state of Gujarat, as well as at a large gathering in Texas of the Indian diaspora — an increasingly crucial extension of the Indian influence in American politics.
But some analysts cautioned that Mr. Trump’s unpredictability and transactional approach could pose risks for India.
Two issues in particular are bound to test the relationship, and most likely soon. During the campaign, Mr. Trump criticized India as gaining an unfair advantage in trade by maintaining high tariffs. And India could be swept up in the controversy if Mr. Trump follows through on his promise of mass deportations of illegal immigrants.
Indians make up the third-largest group of illegal immigrants in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. If Mr. Trump sends large numbers of Indians back to their home country, it could be a major embarrassment for Mr. Modi.
Amita Batra, a New Delhi-based economist and trade expert, said that India should see warning signs in Mr. Trump’s threat of higher tariffs even against America’s traditional allies, as well as his stated willingness to unravel deals with countries like Mexico and Canada that his own first administration had put in place.
“You may say we are on great terms with Trump, we have an easy relation with the United States, but how Trump views that at a particular time is a different question altogether,” Dr. Batra said at an event at the Center for Social and Economic Progress in New Delhi. “India has to be very cautiously approaching Trump 2.0.”
During the interview, Mr. Garcetti described the bilateral relationship as “the most compelling, challenging and consequential” for both countries.
A former Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, Mr. Garcetti arrived in New Delhi in April 2023, after the mission had remained without an ambassador for two years. His confirmation process had hit a wall over accusations that he had overlooked complaints of sexual harassment by an aide when he was mayor.
He made up for the time lost with a burst of energy and outreach like that of a politician in campaign mode.
He was everywhere, from cricket grounds to cafeterias to cultural programs. Sporting a leather jacket, he even got behind the piano to open for the jazz legends Herbie Hancock and Dianne Reeves, who had come to perform at the Piano Man Jazz Club in New Delhi.
But by the time Mr. Garcetti tried his hand at dancing to a viral Bollywood tune at a Diwali celebration, relations between the two countries had hit major obstacles.
In India, right-wing trolls had seized on the U.S. allegations of Indian government involvement in a plot to assassinate an American citizen advocating a separatist cause in India. That, along with the U.S. indictment of Gautam Adani, the business mogul, was evidence that the United States was trying to dampen India’s inevitable rise, the nationalist online voices argued.
The Biden administration appeared intent on addressing the assassination episode quietly with New Delhi, demanding accountability without allowing it to become a major diplomatic sore point.
“On Capitol Hill, within the White House, I think with those in the know it was a real moment of reflection and pause,” Mr. Garcetti said of the assassination case. “It didn’t pause the momentum — you know, relations between countries are always multifaceted and simultaneous and not just between governments. But I think it was an immediate gut check.”
Mr. Garcetti said that the Biden administration had been reassured by India’s response. New Delhi had accepted the U.S. demand, he said, “not just for accountability but for systemic reform and guarantees that this will never happen again.”
An Indian government inquiry that concluded last week recommended legal action against an unnamed person with “earlier criminal links.” It said that the action “must be completed expeditiously,” in what analysts saw as an attempt to begin the Trump era with a clean slate.
“If we want to cooperate in other areas that are important to us, intelligence sharing, et cetera, trust is the basis of everything,” Mr. Garcetti said. “But I’ve been pretty blown away with how trust can deepen through a challenge.”
One question hovering over the deepening ties between the two countries is whether India can truly emerge as an alternative to China in global supply chains — something that Mr. Garcetti also wondered.
India has reaped only a small part of the windfall from the moves away from China, with businesses preferring places like Vietnam, Taiwan and Mexico, where it is easier to set up operations and where tariffs are lower.
Mr. Garcetti said India had made dramatic leaps after opening up its economy only in the 1990s, years after China. He picked up his iPhone to illustrate a widely highlighted recent success: About 15 percent of iPhone manufacturing now happens in India, a figure that could continue growing rapidly, he said.
More broadly, though, India still struggles to attract foreign investment, despite improvements in infrastructure and some streamlining of regulations. Manufacturing is not growing quickly enough to bring India the jobs it desperately needs.
“Where India’s leaving a lot of progress and jobs and growth on the table is figuring out a better way to make it seamless and frictionless to invest here for export,” Mr. Garcetti said. “Because it’s still, you know, for so many components of manufacturing, one of, if not the, highest tariffed economies.”
“They’re not wrong to look and say it used to be 95 percent worse,” Mr. Garcetti said. “But if that 5 percent is still double your competitor or 10 times your competitor — companies, you know, are like water. They flow where gravity takes them.”
World
With US unleashing attacks, Iranian official threatens that the Islamic Republic will deliver a ‘hard slap’
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An Iranian official warned that the Islamic Republic will deliver a “hard slap” while another blatantly threatened the U.S. that “if you strike, you’ll get hit,” according to automatic translations from the two men’s Persian-language posts on X.
Ebrahim Rezaei, whose profile on the social media platform indicates that he is a representative in Iran’s Parliament and the spokesperson for the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, wrote in a post on X, “The martyred Khamenei taught us not to fear America and showed that ‘falsehood will perish.’ Await the hard slap from the Iranians.”
The speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, warned, “America still hasn’t learned that bullying and breaking promises are no longer cost-free. Let me put it plainly: if you strike, you’ll get hit. Don’t flail around pointlessly, or you’ll sink even deeper: the Strait of Hormuz will only open with ‘Iranian arrangements,’ not American threats.”
Both of the men issued their posts on Wednesday after U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced more strikes against Iran.
“At the direction of the Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command forces have started conducting additional strikes against Iran to further degrade their ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States is holding Iran accountable for recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping and civilian crews freely navigating a vital international waterway,” CENTCOM had noted in a post on X.
TRUMP SAYS IRAN CEASEFIRE DEAL IS ‘OVER’ AFTER NEW ROUND OF STRIKES
People gather at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla for a farewell ceremony for Iran’s late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on July 4, 2026, in Tehran, Iran. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
The U.S. military later provided more information about the attacks.
“U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces completed an additional round of strikes against Iran, July 8, to further degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping and innocent civilian mariners in the Strait of Hormuz,” CENTCOM noted on Wednesday night.
“U.S. forces struck approximately 90 Iranian military targets including air defense systems, coastal surveillance assets, missile and drone storage sites, naval capabilities, and military logistics infrastructure along Iran’s coastline. The latest strikes follow successful execution of offensive strikes in Iran the night before,” the announcement noted. “CENTCOM forces hit approximately 80 Iranian military targets July 7, including more than 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps small boats, to impose heavy costs for Iran violating the ceasefire by attacking three commercial vessels navigating the Strait of Hormuz.”
TRUMP DEMANDS END TO TRADE WITH KEY US ALLY, CALLS IT A ‘WASTED CAUSE’
President Donald Trump indicated on Wednesday that, as far as he was concerned, the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding ceasefire was “over.”
Kuwait and Bahrain have both reported coming under attack.
The Kuwait Army noted in a Thursday post on X, which was written in Arabic, “The Official Spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, Major General Saud Abdulaziz Al-Otaibi, stated that the armed forces detected, at dawn today, (3) ballistic missiles, (1) cruise missile, and (10) hostile drones within Kuwaiti airspace, which were successfully intercepted and dealt with.”
TRUMP SAYS ‘IRAN LIES AND CHEATS’ AS IRGC EMERGES AS DOMINANT FORCE IN NEGOTIATIONS WITH US
President Donald Trump speaks as he meets with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, on July 8, 2026. (SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty Images)
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The Bahrain Defense Force noted in a post that was in Arabic, “The General Command clarifies that, with firm resolve and high combat readiness, the Bahrain Defense Force’s air defense systems confronted, intercepted, and destroyed several treacherous Iranian aerial attacks this morning, Thursday, July 9, 2026 CE.”
Three wins to go. How can your team reach the final and win the World Cup 2026? Click here to find out.
Who: Norway vs England list of 3 itemsend of list
What: FIFA World Cup 2026 – Quarterfinals
Where: Miami Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida, the United States
When: Saturday, July 11, at 5pm (21:00 GMT)
How to follow: We will have all the build-up on Al Jazeera Sport from 18:00 GMT before our live text commentary stream.
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Four weeks ago, if you told Norwegians their team would be in the World Cup quarterfinals, they might have laughed it off. But this weekend, the Scandinavian country is set to break new ground.
Norway’s dream run in North America enters a new chapter when the tournament’s dark horses take on title contenders England for a place in the semifinals.
It took Norway a whopping 28 years to return to the sport’s biggest stage, and they have made their mark in style – from their traditional Viking row celebrations capturing global attention to striker Erling Haaland becoming the internet’s darling.
A lethal presence in the box and a goofy, no-nonsense personality off the pitch, Haaland has become somewhat of an all-round entertainer for viewers. His exemplary goal-scoring figures make you almost forget he’s playing in his debut World Cup – and next up, the towering striker will go toe-to-toe with England’s Harry Kane, another number nine who delivers when it matters most.
How did Norway and England reach the round of 16?
Norway finished second in Group I with six points, beating Senegal and Iraq and losing to France. They started their knockout phase with a late 2-1 win over the Ivory Coast before stunning Brazil by the same scoreline to reach the quarterfinals for the first time.
England topped Group L with seven points, beating Croatia and Panama and drawing with Ghana. They needed a second-half comeback to beat the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the round of 32 and knocked out cohosts Mexico 3-2 in a scintillating last-16 contest at the iconic Azteca Stadium.
Pressure firmly on England
The chants of “It’s Coming Home” were louder than ever when England’s fighting spirit – against the background of high altitude, history and a red card – steered them to victory against the home side Mexico.
Sharing 10 of the team’s 11 goals between them, the dynamic duo of Kane and Jude Bellingham has kept England alive in the title race, especially at a time when there are defensive deficiencies in the squad.
The in-form side, which also boasts more World Cup experience than Norway, are deemed favourites to reach the semifinals for the first time since 2018.
“We’ve been here a few times,” said England winger Bukayo Saka. “But the best team on the day is going to be the team that wins, so we’re aware of that and that’s where our focus is.”
England’s leaky defence – which has kept only two clean sheets in five games – will face its toughest test yet against Haaland, whose seven goals rank him third in the Golden Boot race, only behind Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe.
Haaland: The most recognisable face at the World Cup
In their first World Cup since 1998, Norway, a nation of just more than five million people, has exceeded expectations.
After stunning the record five-time world champions Brazil to reach their first-ever quarterfinal, Norway will be eager to take down another giant and extend their fairytale run.
As much as their success has been a team effort, the spotlight has centred on their poster boy, Haaland – the blond, pony-tailed, 1.95-metre- (6ft4-) tall striker and a new social media sensation.
With his nonchalant replies in news conferences, awkward post-match selfies on Snapchat and a glittering collection of luxury handbags, the striker has drawn attention for more than just his goal-scoring prowess. In fact, “Haaland mania” has reached a fever pitch during the course of the World Cup.
Instagram is flooded with AI-generated and animated videos of him, stitched with his now-famous song “Ha-ha-ha-Haaland”.
“It’s important to joke around … I like to joke a little bit, and I like to have fun,” Haaland said. “That’s a key for my daily life – to joke around and, of course, train well and prepare well.”
Haaland’s top-notch preparation has delivered outcomes that even the 25-year-old did not expect.
“To be in the quarterfinals with Norway in the World Cup is quite surprising, even for me,” he said.
“Just to be able to play in the World Cup is, for me, a huge honour, and it was a huge goal for me in my career. To be able to be here and play on the biggest stage with my Norwegian friends against the best teams in the world, it’s really special.”
Norway vs England predictions
The Opta supercomputer gives England a 50.4 percent likelihood of winning in regulation time, while Norway’s chances of winning are 25.1 percent.
The model estimates a 24.6 percent probability of the game going to extra time.
What time is Norway vs England?
- Norway: NRK1, NRK2, TV 2 (11pm, Central European Summer Time)
- United Kingdom: STV, STV Player, ITV1, ITVX (10pm, British Summer Time)
- USA: Peacock, Fox, Fox One, Telemundo App, Telemundo Network (5pm, Eastern Daylight Time)
To check the TV listings for your country, head to FIFA’s TV listing schedule here.
Who will the winner face in the semifinals?
The winner of the Norway vs England match will play Argentina or Switzerland in the semifinals in Atlanta on Wednesday.
Norway vs England: Head-to-head
Norway and England have never met at the World Cup, but have previously faced each other 12 times. England have won seven times, Norway twice, while three matches ended in a draw.
Their most recent encounter came in a 2014 international friendly, which England won 1-0 at Wembley.
Norway vs England: Team news
England will be without defender Jarell Quansah after he was handed a two-match ban for picking up a red card in the game against Mexico. He will miss the quarterfinal and a potential semifinal should England advance.
Centre-back Marc Guehi has a slight hamstring strain and will be assessed later on Friday to see if he is fit to play, while Reece James remains doubtful with a hamstring injury.
Defensive midfielder Jordan Henderson has been ruled out of the rest of the tournament with a broken wrist.
No issues have been reported in the Norway camp.
Norway’s predicted lineup
(4-3-3): Nyland (goalkeeper); Ryerson, Ajer, Heggem, Moller Wolfe; Berg, Berge, Odegaard; Sorloth, Haaland, Nusa
England’s predicted lineup
(4-2-3-1): Pickford (goalkeeper); Konsa, Stones, Guehi, O’Reilly; Rice, Anderson; Saka, Bellingham, Gordon; Kane
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