Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not go to the US this month for the United Nations General Assembly session. Foreign minister S Jaishankar will represent India instead at UNGA’s General Debate during
the High-Level week, as per the provisional list of speakers issued on September 5.
This is as per the convention in recent years as PM Modi had last attended UNGA in 2021, which was the assembly’s 76th session. Modi did go to the UN Headquarters last year but not for the General debate. He had then spoken at the “Summit of the Future” event of the UNGA, two days before the general debate started. Jaishankar has been representing India at the UNGA general debate since 2022.
In his 11-year tenure as the PM, Modi has spoken at the UNGA general debate four times — in 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2014. In all other years, either then external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj or present foreign minister S Jaishankar represented India at the general debate.
While Modi won’t be visiting the US soon, India is expecting the visit of US President Donald Trump for the QUAD Summit later this year, for which Trump had accepted an invite from Modi this June. However, a recent NYT report claimed Trump had dropped the idea of that visit now, given the tensions between US and India on the issue of the 50 per cent tariff imposed on India.
The US State Department referred CNN-News18 to the White House when asked if Trump would visit India for the QUAD Summit this year.
