Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India began meeting senior U.S. officials in Washington ahead of his anticipated visit to the White House to meet President Trump on Thursday.

Mr. Modi has a warm personal relationship with Mr. Trump, and the two leaders have called each other friends. But Mr. Trump has criticized India for its high tariffs, and India is the biggest source, outside of Latin America, of unauthorized migrants in the United States.

After arriving in Washington on Wednesday, Mr. Modi met Tulsi Gabbard on her first day as Mr. Trump’s director of national intelligence. They discussed the relationship between the two countries, Mr. Modi’s office said, without offering details.

India and the United States, the world’s largest democracies, have grown closer in the face of an increasingly assertive mutual rival, China. India has traded more with the United States than it has with China, and spent billions on U.S. defense imports in recent years.

Despite their strong rapport, both Mr. Modi and Mr. Trump are strongmen with largely transactional views on foreign relations and an eye on what will please their bases.