NEW DELHI - US President Donald Trump will open the world's biggest cricket stadium and watch the sun set at the famed Taj Mahal during a lightning visit to India starting Monday, but behind the spectacular optics he is expected to face a protectionist counter-punch on trade.
Trump's blossoming bromance with Prime Minister Narendra Modi that will be on show again belies prickly relations, particularly over commerce, with both men ramping up protectionist measures.
Experts say this has hurt US efforts to make India a strategic counterweight to China, while Trump's mediation offer in the long-running Kashmir dispute with Pakistan has annoyed New Delhi.
"We're not treated very well by India, but I happen to like Prime Minister Modi a lot," Trump, 73, said before his maiden official visit to the nation of 1.3 billion with First Lady Melania, daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The US president arrives in the western state of Gujarat where Modi's record while chief minister as a reformer and flag-bearer of Hindu nationalism catapulted him to the national stage in 2014.
Trump told a rally on Thursday that "six to 10 million people" would be along the route of his motorcade, but this appears to be a misunderstanding. Organisers said there will be tens of thousands.
A 700-metre (-yard) wall has been built, allegedly to hide a slum, while construction workers have been rushing to complete the Sardar Patel Stadium.
It will be crammed with around 100,000 people for an event dubbed "Namaste Trump", payback for a "Howdy, Modi" rally in Houston last year in front of some of America's vast Indian diaspora.
- Pizza cheese -
The Trumps will then fly to the Taj Mahal, the white marble "jewel of Muslim art" according to UNESCO, but afterwards it will be down to business in New Delhi on Tuesday.
Reports suggest Trump and Modi may agree a modest trade pact covering items including imports of Harley-Davidson motorcycles and US dairy products such as pizza cheese, as well as a number of defence and other deals.
But this will fall short of the comprehensive agreement the world's largest economy and the planet's biggest democracy have been seeking for years.
"To be fair to India, they have managed Trump much better than others including key US allies like Japan, Australia and other Western European countries," Pant told AFP. (AFP)