US President Donald Trump participated in Diwali celebrations at the White House on Tuesday (local time) and extended his warm greetings to the people of India and Indian-Americans on the occasion. During initial remarks, the US President praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him a "great person" and a "great friend", while highlighting US-India ties in trade and regional peace.

"Let me extend our warmest wishes to the people of India. I just spoke to your Prime Minister today. Had a great conversation. We talked about trade... He's very interested in that. Although we did talk a little while ago about let's have no wars with Pakistan. The fact that trade was involved, I was able to talk about that. And we have no war with Pakistan and India. That was a very, very good thing," Trump said at the event.