US President Donald Trump has said America has “lost” both India and Russia to China, in a pointed admission that lands amid a sharp downturn in relations with New Delhi.
“Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, posting an image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
A few days ago, Trump had said he got along well with India, though the relationship was ‘one-sided.’
At the recently-concluded Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, the three leaders publicly discussed cooperation across areas ranging from energy to security.
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The remark comes a little over a week after the Trump administration imposed sweeping 50% tariffs on Indian goods (from August 27), citing New Delhi’s continued purchase of Russian oil. India’s Ministry of External Affairs said it has “no comments to offer on the post made” by the US president. Trump advisor Peter Navarro has even gone to extent of calling the Russia-Ukraine conflict, “Modi’s war.”
For decades, Washington has sought to cultivate India as a counterweight to China’s expanding influence. Successive Republican and Democratic administrations invested heavily in deepening ties, with Trump himself courting India during his first term.
Now, the tariff escalation and Trump’s sharp rhetoric risk clouding a relationship that had been seen as one of the cornerstones of US strategy in the Indo-Pacific.
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