Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump addressed an over-40-minute press conference early on Friday, India time, a rare event for the prime minister who has a reputation of avoiding such engagements.

The two leaders first gave separate statements and then Trump opened the floor to questions from the press.

One of the questions directed to both leaders was to do with the US Department of Justice’s bribery charges against the Adani Group.

An American reporter asked: “Thank you Mr President, can I ask whether you discussed at all today the case of Gautam Adani, who's one of the wealthiest men in Asia and perceived as an ally of Prime Minister Modi? Prime Minister Modi, have you asked the President to take action on that case?”

Prime Minister Modi answered the question in Hindi after Trump did not take it up for answering.

“First, India is a democratic country and our culture and our thought, our philosophy is Vasudeva Kutmubakam which basically means that the entire world is a family. Every Indian is my own family member. When it comes to such personal matters, two leaders of two countries don’t meet to discuss anything on an individual matter,” Modi answered.

He used the word vyaktigat, which the White House translator translated as “personal”.

A number of news agencies interpreted his body language – gesturing with his hands as he spoke – to mean that the prime minister was irked by the question.

At the outset of the event, Trump began his speech with: “I'm thrilled to welcome the prime minister of India, my friend Narendra Modi, back to the White House. We spent a lot of time here and a lot of time in India and he's a very special man. Prime minister, it is a pleasure to extend to you the same hospitality that you showed Melania and myself when we travelled to your beautiful country five years ago.”

He added: “It's hard to believe so long ago and it seemed like yesterday. It was beautiful. We opened the cricket stadium, 129,000 seats, I think the largest stadium in the world and it was an incredible period of time there is truly a special bond between the United States and India in the world's oldest democracy and the world's largest democracy and I believe the world's largest country in terms of the numbers of people.”

In his speech, Modi returned the warmth Trump showered on him.

“President Trump's leadership has been instrumental in nurturing India-US ties and making them vibrant. I could feel today the same enthusiasm, the same energy, the same commitment that we had worked with during our first term,” Modi said in his speech.

Despite the bonhomie, there was the proverbial elephant in the room, India’s tariffs.

“India imposes a 30 to 40 to 60 and even 70 per cent tariff on so many of the goods,” Trump said in his speech.

“And in some cases far more than that, and as an example a 70 per cent tariff on US cars going into India, which makes it pretty much impossible to sell those cars. Today the US trade deficit with India is almost hundred billion [dollars] and Prime Minister Modi and I have agreed that we'll be begin negotiations to address the long-running disparities that should have been taken care of over the last four years but they didn't do that in the US-India trading relationship, with the goal of signing an agreement.

“And we want, really, we want a certain level playing field which we really think we're entitled to and he does also, in fairness.”

On defence ties, Trump said: “Starting this year, we’ll be increasing military sales to India by many billions of dollars. We're also paving the way to ultimately provide India with the F35 stealth fighters.”

After Modi finished his speech, Trump said: “Okay, thank you very much, it was excellent. We'll do a few questions please. “Please go ahead,” Trump added, gesturing to an Indian reporter. “Please go ahead, yeah, yeah blue shirt.”

The Indian reporter in the blue shirt asked a question about Tawahhur Rana – who had helped 26/11 mastermind David Headley, adding: “In last few years we have seen several groups in the US being raising anti-india voice calling about separation terrorism activities in India do you think that should continue here in the US as well.”

“You're going to have to go louder,” Trump replied.

When the reporter tried to repeat his question louder, Trump said: “I can't understand a word of what he’s saying” and moved on to another reporter.

To a question from PTI on illegal immigration from India to the US, Modi replied: “I don't think this is a question that is about India only, even globally you can talk about this issue. We are of the opinion that anybody who enters another country illegally they they have absolutely no right to be in that country and as far as India and the US is concerned we have always been of the same opinion and that is that any verified Indian who is in the US illegally, we are fully prepared to take them back to India.

“However, it doesn't stop there,” the prime minister added. “These are children of very ordinary families and they are lured by big dreams and big promises a lot of them are brought in without them knowing about why they're going to a country and in fact they are connected with a human

trafficking system and we have to make sure that we fight against this system. To make sure that we uproot these from within the system so that we can reduce or remove human

trafficking. The young, vulnerable, poor people of India are fooled into coming over as illegal immigrants and our bigger fight actually is against this ecosystem or this system that encourages such gangs to thrive.”

Asked if he had discussed any business deals with Elon Musk, Modi said: “I have known him for a very long time. I was not even a prime minister at the time when I first met him; I was chief minister. Today he came to meet me along with all his family with his children and uh so we

had a nice discussion as far as EVs are concerned, the word EV has a copyright, one person has a copyright for the word EV and that is Trump.”

When asked who was a better negotiator, Trump gave it to Modi.

“Oh he's a much tougher negotiator than me and he's a much better negotiator than me there's not even a contest,” the US President said.

It was just after that that the question about Adani was asked.