The United States will be ready to ship the first tranche of 100 donated ventilators to India next week, President Donald Trump told Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a conference call, the White House said.

Trump spoke with Modi on Tuesday and “the two leaders discussed the G-7 (summit), the COVID-19 response, and regional security issues”, it said.

“The president was happy to announce that the United States would be ready to ship the first tranche of 100 donated ventilators to India next week,” the White House said in a readout of the call.

Earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a series of tweets, said that he had a warm and productive conversation with his “friend” Donald Trump.

“We discussed his plans for the US Presidency of G-7, the COVID-19 pandemic, and many other issues,” he said.

“The richness and depth of India-US consultations will remain an important pillar of the post-COVID global architecture,” PM Modi tweeted.

Last month, Donald Trump had announced that his country would donate ventilators to India in the fight against COVID-19.

“I am proud to announce that the United States will donate ventilators to our friends in India. We stand with India and @narendramodi during this pandemic. We’re also cooperating on vaccine development. Together we will beat the invisible enemy!” he had said in a tweet.

“We are sending a lot of ventilators to India. I spoke to Prime Minister Modi. We are sending quite a few ventilators to India. We have tremendous supply of ventilators,” Trump had told reporters later, however, not mentioning the quantity.

Following the announcement, Prime Minister Modi had tweeted thanks to Trump saying “it’s always important for nations to work together and do as much as possible to make our world healthier and free from COVID-19”.

In March, President Donald Trump had announced to supply over 1 lakh ventilators to its allies in 100 days to fight the Coronavirus pandemic.

Ventilator, a breathing device that helps a person to breathe when Coronavirus takes over the body causing the lungs to fail, helping the patient to recover from the infection.

Meanwhile, during the Tuesday night call, Donald Trump spoke about the US presidency of the Group of seven, and conveyed his desire to expand the ambit of the grouping beyond the existing membership, to include other important countries including India.

“In this context, he extended an invitation to Prime Minister Modi to attend the next G-7 Summit to be held in USA,” said the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in a statement.

PM Modi commended Donald Trump for his creative and far-sighted approach, acknowledging the that such an expanded forum would be in keeping with the emerging realities of the post-COVID world.

Prime Minister Modi said that India would be happy to work with the US and other countries to ensure the success of the proposed Summit, the PMO said.