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.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mark Schiefelbein has been based in Washington, D.C., with AP for about three years, and before that spent a decade in Beijing at AP’s China bureau.
Here’s what he had to say about this extraordinary photo.
Why this photo?
This was an event that had never happened before in the 250-year history of the United States and may never happen again: a night of mixed martial-arts cage match brawls on the South Lawn of the White House, with bloodied competitors battling it out in front of the president, vice president, and other leaders of the country. AP had other photographers ringside at the event focusing more on the fights themselves. So I felt my role was to capture the context of the evening — the location, the people in attendance, the environment.
How I made this photo
A small group of other photographers and I, the White House press pool, had been allowed to photograph part of the evening from a position in the stands directly opposite the White House. I was carrying four cameras with a variety of lenses from 12 mm to 300 mm. This let me capture everything from ultra-wide views of the “claw” structure built for the fights, to close-ups of leaders and celebrities in attendance. I had been following Diego Lopes with my longest lens as he moved around the ring celebrating his win over Steve Garcia. When I saw him start to climb onto the cage, I immediately realized there might be a possibility of a picture like this and zoomed out to capture more of the scene.
An octagon on the White House lawn for Trump’s 80th birthday and the nation’s 250th, in photos
Why this photo works
The White House is surely one of the most recognizable buildings in the world. The columns of the South Portico, the fighter standing with arms and legs spread wide in celebration, and the octagon padding of the UFC ring tell an entire story as your eyes move from top to bottom of the frame. With Lopes standing with his back to the camera, facing the White House, it becomes less a photo of him and more about the evening, the event, and the spectacle. It was fortunate that it was after nightfall, so things that might have been distracting, like the Marine Band and spectators seated behind the ring, are mostly in the dark. Only the key elements – the White House, Lopes, and the ring are lit up.
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For more extraordinary AP photography, click here.
World
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces potential leadership challenge from newly-elected Andy Burnham
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Andy Burnham has officially won his special election and regained a seat in Parliament, setting him up to challenge the deeply unpopular Keir Starmer as the leader of the Labour party and as prime minister.
Burnham, currently the mayor of Greater Manchester in northwest England, won a seat in Makerfield and came away with 55% of the vote in a field of more than a dozen candidates, according to The Associated Press. The runner-up was Rob Kenyon of Reform UK, a right-wing populist party, who received more than 9,000 fewer votes than Burnham.
Burnham last served as a member of Parliament in 2017 but strongly implied in his victory speech that he is returning with the intention to lead the United Kingdom.
“Everyone knows that politics isn’t working. Everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be. Tonight could, just could, be the turning point,” he said, according to the AP. “This result will bring about a country that works fairly for everywhere and for everybody.”
TRUMP ALLY NIGEL FARAGE DEALS MAJOR BLOW TO STARMER IN LOCAL UK ELECTIONS AS RESIGNATION CALLS MOUNT
Britain’s Labour party candidate Andy Burnham speaks to supporters after the Makerfield by-election in Ashton in Makerfield, England, on Friday, June 19, 2026. (Jon Super/AP)
This special election, called by-elections in Britain, was unusually significant because the area’s Labour MP, Josh Simons, intentionally resigned to allow Burnham to win the seat and pursue leadership.
The potentially outsized impact of this election was juxtaposed with the strange scene that unfolded when all the candidates gathered on Friday morning to hear the results. Burnham stood in between an independent candidate dressed in a fox costume and another candidate known as “Count Binface”.
As his name suggests, “Count Binface,” whose real name is Jonathan David Harvey, was wearing a trash can on his head and regularly runs in U.K. elections to advocate for increased voter turnout.
Starmer congratulated Burnham in a social media post on X, saying voters “chose Labour’s campaign of hope and optimism over division and hate.”
When asked about Burnham’s intentions to oust him as leader, Starmer said he will fight to remain prime minister, a position he has held for nearly two years.
“I’ve said repeatedly I’m not going to walk away from that,” Starmer told reporters.
Labour party candidate Andy Burnham, center, stands with other candidates on the podium at the Edge Wigan, awaiting the Makerfield by-election result announcement in Wigan, England, on Friday, June 19, 2026. (Jon Super/AP)
AS EPSTEIN-LINKED APPOINTMENT SPARKS BACKLASH, UK PM STARMER FACES PARTY REVOLT AMID RESIGNATION CALLS
Starmer led the Labour party to a landslide victory in July 2024 and ever since, his popularity has been eroding thanks to a persistently high cost of living, an anemic economy and a scandal over his willingness to accept gifts from wealthy donors.
Last September, Starmer was slammed for appointing Peter Mandelson as the British ambassador to the United States, when it was known as early as 2019 that Mandelson had a friendship with convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Following an enormous public backlash, Mandelson was quickly dismissed from his post.
With Starmer as leader, Labour is increasingly losing liberal-minded voters to the Green Party, while also facing stronger challenges by Reform UK, a Nigel Farage-led party that advocates against mass migration and in favor of tighter border controls. Farage, an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, said he was disappointed by Burnham’s victory.
Burnham is expected to head to London to be sworn in as soon as Monday. Under the British parliamentary system, the governing party can hold leadership elections in the middle of the term. The winner of such a contest can become prime minister without there having to be a national election.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer awaits Switzerland’s Federal President Guy Parmelin on the sidelines of the G7 summit, in Evian-les-Bains, France, on Tuesday, June 16, 2026 (Isabel Infantes/Pool Reuters via AP)
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Under Labour rules, a lawmaker can challenge the leader if they win the backing of a fifth of their party’s members in the House of Commons. Burnham has enough lawmakers on board to trigger a leadership contest, according to a report from The New Statesman.
According to the AP, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said Burnham and Starmer will “have a conversation about what comes next” in the next few days.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez have issued a blistering rebuke against deportation camps outside the European Union, setting their countries on a collision course with a growing political majority.
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During a summit on Friday, 19 leaders across the bloc signed a joint declaration calling to make “full use” of a new European law that enables the construction of so-called return hubs to host migrants whose asylum applications have been denied.
The coalition, led by Denmark and Italy, two fierce advocates of outsourcing, wants to “move forward with solutions based in third countries as soon as possible”.
But for Macron and Sánchez, this path runs counter to European values and risks squandering financial resources and undercutting relations with neighbouring Africa.
“I am not sure that this is our Europe. I don’t know if these are the fundamental principles on which our Europe was built,” Macron said at the end of the summit on Friday.
“And I don’t think it’s effective, either. The proof is that I have not seen anyone make it work so far,” he went on, underscoring his strong dissatisfaction. (Italy has set up migration centres on Albanian soil but has fallen short of expected targets.)
“I have a lot of respect for anyone who wants to do it. I disagree, both pragmatically and in principle. I think it has nothing to do with European politics.”
Macron said his country was in favour of tougher laws to curb irregular arrivals but drew a red line on the physical transfer of migrants to faraway countries where they have never set foot. That possibility, long considered taboo, is allowed under a revamped Return Regulation described as the “strictest-ever” migration law.
“There is a question, in fact, around these famous return hubs in third countries. France does not support this policy. We are in favour of a more effective return policy. But first of all, I have never seen a return hub in a third country operate,” Macron went on.
“I invite you to consider what it is (in practice): this means that people who do not want to return to their country of origin or who cannot get back to their country of origin will be pushed into a third country, which will accept them in return for money.”
Macron mocked the jargonistic term “innovative solutions” that proponents of migration offshoring often use in their public communication and challenged the notion that host countries would respect human rights in exchange for financial incentives.
“I am a big supporter of innovation in my country,” he said, saying he would later attend the Vivatech festival in Paris. “But I am always very careful when talking about innovation in values and human rights. Allow me to have that reservation.”
Meanwhile, Sánchez, a vocal critic of the measures, said the deportation camps would be an “absolutely inefficient” and “worthless” response to irregular migration.
“It’s a mirage, if you will, that it will simply waste economic resources, and Europe doesn’t have many,” the Spaniard said after the summit in Brussels.
“Secondly, it sends a wrong message to those countries of origin and transit with which we should be collaborating, cooperating and showing empathy towards.”
Macron echoed Sánchez’s reputational concerns and insisted he would not allow EU funds to be used in any capacity to build the deportation camps, which are “neither effective nor do they correspond with our principles”.
“Sometimes, we hear one or the other (country) advocate policies with the African continent, so good luck defending our credibility on these continents by explaining that we will use the money for investments to build return hubs on their continents,” he said.
“What world do we live in?”
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