US President Donald Trump today said in a social media post that it "looks like we've lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest China," before sarcastically wishing all three countries a "prosperous" future.
Chinese President Xi Jinping played host to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin earlier in the week."Looks like we've lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!" Trump posted on his Truth Social.
The comments mark Trump's sharpest public acknowledgement to date of the deepening ties between New Delhi, Moscow and Beijing. The three leaders publicly discussed cooperation in areas ranging from energy to security, with all of them -- at different levels -- at odds with Washington on issues including the war in Ukraine and global trade policy.
For decades, Washington has viewed India as a potential counterweight to China's expanding influence. Both Republican and Democratic administrations invested in cultivating New Delhi as a strategic partner. Trump himself courted India during his first term, appearing with PM Modi at the 2019 "Howdy Modi" rally in Houston and reviving the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) with Japan and Australia.
Yet recent developments point to a cooling of ties. Experts note that Trump's tariff measures, along with his criticism of India's energy trade with Russia, have weakened Washington's leverage.
The SCO summit in Tianjin marked PM Modi's first visit to China in seven years, a significant development given long-standing tensions, including the deadly 2020 border clash in the Galwan Valley. By meeting both Xi and Putin, PM Modi signalled a willingness to place strategic autonomy above alignment with any single bloc.
Since returning to office, Trump has imposed a combined 50 per cent tariff on Indian goods --25 per cent reciprocal tariffs plus an additional 25 per cent levy targeting India's Russian oil imports. The tariffs are among the steepest Washington has placed on any trade partner.
Trump has repeatedly argued that India has benefited disproportionately from the trading relationship. "What few people understand is that we do very little business with India, but they do a tremendous amount of business with us," he said recently. "It has been a totally one-sided disaster. Also, India buys most of its oil and military products from Russia, very little from the US." The energy trade has become a flashpoint. Trump has accused India of financing Moscow's war in Ukraine through its purchases of discounted Russian crude oil. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has countered that the US has not applied the same standards to China or the European Union, both of which remain major importers of Russian energy.