New Delhi: US president Donald Trump today (February 20) questioned the political implications of the $21-million grant by USAID for voter turnout in India – which the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency has cancelled – leading the Congress to demand a white paper.
This comes just as Trump revealed in an interview with Fox News that his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not help India stave off higher tariffs.
At an event in Miami, Trump brought up the USAID grant that has been making news on domestic shores of late.
““Why do we need to spend $21 million on voter turnout in India? I guess they were trying to get somebody else elected. We have got to tell the Indian Government. Because when we hear that Russia spent about two thousand dollars in our country, it was a big deal. They took some internet ads for two thousand dollars. This is a total breakthrough,” he said.
“I have a lot of respect for India. I have a lot of respect for the prime minister. He just left, as you know, two days ago. But we’re giving $ 21 million for voter turnout. It’s voter turnout in India. What about, like, voter turnout here? Oh, we’ve done that, I guess. We did $ 500 million, didn’t we? It’s called the lockboxes,” he added.
The move to revoke the funding came through an announcement by DOGE on February 16, in which the department declared the cancellation of financial support previously allocated to the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS).
Trump had publicly supported the move. “Why are we giving USD 21 million to India? They have got a lot of money. They are one of the highest taxing countries in the world in terms of us; we can hardly get in there because their tariffs are so high,” Trump had said.
The decision led to a group of Bharatiya Janata Party leaders arriving at the conclusion that the Congress government before Modi’s regime had allowed “foreign influence” in India. Fact-checkers on X had shown how deeply USAID was enmeshed in the Modi government’s activities as well, including the fact that Modi himself had presided over events involving USAID officials.
Nonetheless, Trump’s words are likely to add fuel to BJP’s claims. Amit Malviya, the BJP’s ‘IT cell’ head who had been claiming that USAID’s intrusion was a Congress folly has responded to the news of Trump’s comment with a post on X, saying:
“US President Trump’s claim that money was being pumped into India to influence election result in the country is a reaffirmation of Prime Minister Modi’s assertion during the 2024 campaign that foreign powers were trying to stop him from coming to power…”
Congress veteran Jairam Ramesh has called Trump’s comment “typically nonsense.” “Even so, the Govt of India should bring out a White Paper at the earliest detailing USAID’s support to both governmental and non-governmental institutions in India over the decades,” he said.
Trump’s appearance at this event, the Saudi Arabia-backed FII PRIORITY Summit, has in turn, been subjected to criticism and questions on how the US president manages his business and administrative interests.