Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi said on Saturday questioned PM Narendra Modi’s foreign policy methods after US President Donald Trump imposed a $100,000 fee on H-1B visas, which could mean the end of the American dream for Indian techies and other high-skilled workers.
“What did you achieve with Howdy Modi and Namaste Trump?” Owaisi posted on X, referring to events held in the US and India by Trump and Modi for each other. “All those NRIs that you gathered in the Madison Square garden, what did that achieve?” he further asked.
Owaisi, whose party AIMIM has its home base in Telangana and earlier in the undivided Andhra Pradesh, said that among Indians, who are over 70% of H-1B recipients, people from Telangana and Andhra have been its biggest beneficiaries.
Seeking to explain how Trump’s move will affect India, Owaisi said, “The average annual salary for Indian H1B holders is ~$120,000 primarily in the tech industry. For families back home, these salaries translate into a source of income, contributing significantly to India’s $125 billion remittance inflow. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana account for 37% of Indian NRI deposits. A major source of intergenerational mobility has been closed. But who is to blame?”
He took a dig at Trump’s recent phone call to Modi on the latter’s birthday. “Birthday wishes are not foreign policy successes… We are a strategic partner of the US, and if they don’t see us as allies, then it is a failure of this government,” he posted.
Saying that he did not “derive any pleasure from seeing this happen”, he listed the huge tariffs imposed by the US on Indian goods, the US dealings with Pakistan, and even the recent Pakistan-Saudi Arabia security agreement — “could not have happened without US’s blessings” — as proofs of India’s “vulnerable position”.
“Is it because you have reduced these issues to gimmicks? After all, it’s not Modi who suffers, but common Indians,” he further said, accusing Modi of sacrificing long-term gains “for domestic posturing”.
He called 2014-2024, the time since Modi has become PM, “a lost decade”.
The Congress took a similar line and called PM Modi “weak”, as did the Aam Aadmi Party whose convener Arvind Kejriwal said it appeared Modi was not capable of doing anything on this.
