Staff Reporter:
Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus is “confident” that he can find “common ground” with President-elect Donald Trump despite their divergent worldviews, reports TIME Magazine.
“Trump is a businessman; we are in business,” TIME quoted Prof Yunus as saying.
“We are not asking for free money to help us out of some crisis; we want a business partner,” he said.
Reassuring global firms that Bangladesh remains open for business with a top priority, he said still the glacial pace of reform means doubts fester, according to the TIME.
On 31 October, Trump posted on X to condemn the “barbaric violence against Hindus, Christians, and other minorities who are getting attacked and looted by mobs in Bangladesh, which remains in a total state of chaos.”
Compounding matters, Prof Yunus has his own baggage with Trump, owing to his close friendship with Hillary Clinton, publicly lamenting her 2016 election defeat: “Trump’s win has hit us so hard that this morning I could hardly speak. I lost all strength.”
As protesters encircled her official residence in Dhaka, former PM Sheikh Hasina fled in a military helicopter to India, where she and her cabal of key advisers continued to rail against her ouster.
Prof Yunus revealed that he would be seeking Hasina’s extradition after prosecutors issued a warrant for her part in the violence, though few believe Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would comply.
“Not only is she being hosted by India, the worst part is that she’s talking, which causes a lot of problems for us. It makes people very unhappy to hear that voice. So, this is something that we have to resolve,” Yunus said.
Prof Yunus tells TIME that the young minds are full of ideas and ambitions and aspirations. “They depicted their future in those murals, and it’s something much greater than Bangladesh has ever seen.”
