Fortress India piles the sandbags high as Modi defies Trump

Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, was all smiles during his trip to China at the weekend for a regional security summit, appearing at ease in the company of Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin. The White House doesn't like what it sees. Just before Modi's trip, Peter Navarro,Donald Trump's trade envoy, lambasted Modi for "getting into bed with the authoritarians". Modi's public display of defiance against Trump comes hot on the heels of the US president pummelling India with his highest tariff: a 50pc hit on about two thirds of the country's $87bn (£64bn) exports to the US. Unlike almost…