‘Looks like we have lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest China’: Trump

President Donald Trump has said that it appears that the United States has “lost” India and Russia to China.

“Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!” said Trump in a post on social media with a photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin from the SCO Summit.

The Summit on August 31-September 1 in China’s Tianjin, Xi hosted biggest non-Western world leaders like Modi, Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. China projected the gathering as a show of China’s strength and portrayed Beijing as the new centre of global power.

Photographs of Modi, Xi, and Putin made some of the biggest headlines. At a time when Trump has waged an intense coercive campaign against India, several observers in the West saw the meeting of three leaders as either India’s potential realignment away from the US-led Western world towards the China-Russia bloc or India signalling to Trump that it has options other than the United Stats in its international dealings.

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In his second term, Trump has pursued an intense multi-domain anti-India campaign. In addition to slapping 50 per cent tariffs and continuing verbal attacks, he has undermined India on Operation Sindoor, aligned with India’s adversary Pakistan, and sought to meddle in the Kashmir issue.

In trade negotiations, observers have said that Trump sought all gains for the United States instead of a win-win deal that would have benefitted both sides.

As a result, the India-US relationship has nosedived, and observers have said that consistent progress made in the bilateral relationship for three decades in the post-Cold War era is now at risk.

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President Trump has broken the trust in the India-US relationship, and it will take time and efforts on part of the Americans to rebuild trust, and the responsibility would likely fall on the next administration, Yusuf Unjhawala, a scholar of geopolitics at the Takshashila Institution, previously told Firstpost.

“For now, the India-US relationship appears to be frozen and that is expected to deal a blow to collaborations such as the Quad. However, this situation also brings opportunities for middle powers, including in the Indo-Pacific, to come together. I have long believed that India, Japan, and Australia should have a much closer partnership,” said Unjhawala.