United States President Donald Trump on Friday lamented that Washington is “losing” two major powers, India and Russia, to what he described as “deepest, darkest China”, as trade tensions continue to cloud America’s ties with New Delhi and Moscow.
The remark was made on Trump’s Truth Social account on Friday, where he posted a photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping together at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin.
“Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!” the President wrote, amplifying his concern about shifting geopolitical alignments.
The remarks add fuel to Washington’s increasingly fraught trade and diplomatic ties with New Delhi. Last month, Trump imposed a sweeping 50 per cent tariff on Indian imports, later supplementing it with an additional 25 per cent levy over India’s continued purchases of discounted Russian crude oil.
India’s deepening energy and defence partnership with Russia, coupled with its balancing act between East and West, has left Trump fuming. His tariff moves have triggered political backlash at home as well, with a US appeals court ruling the levies “illegal.”
India, for its part, has sought to deepen its engagement with multilateral groupings such as the SCO and BRICS, where Moscow and Beijing hold considerable sway.
New Delhi has also pursued its longstanding defence and energy ties with Moscow despite pressure from Washington to reduce strategic dependence on Russia. The optics of Modi standing with Putin and Xi at the SCO were thus seized upon by Trump to point at his argument that US influence in the region is waning.
Only days earlier, Trump had accused Xi of “conspiring against” America after hosting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Putin at Beijing’s largest military parade since the Cold War, staged to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II.
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Russia factor
For Washington, the challenge is two-fold. Russia, under heavy Western sanctions, has increasingly leaned on Beijing for economic and military cooperation. India’s purchase of discounted Russian crude has similarly drawn criticism in the West, even though New Delhi maintains that its decisions are guided by national interest.
Trump’s broadside reflects a concern that Moscow and New Delhi are consolidating ties with Beijing at a time when Washington’s approach towards both countries is marked by tariffs, sanctions and friction.
The Chinese equation
China’s presence at the heart of these shifting equations has been a persistent theme of Trump’s rhetoric. By framing India and Russia as being “lost” to Beijing, the President is attempting to highlight what he perceives as the failure of US diplomacy to counterbalance China’s growing influence across Asia.
Whether this latest outburst signals a recalibration of policy or is part of Trump’s election-year political messaging remains to be seen. For now, the move displays the uneasy state of America’s ties with India and Russia, and the persistence of China as the defining fault-line.
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