Donald Trump says India and Russia appear to have been ‘lost to deepest, darkest China’

United States President Donald Trump on Friday remarked that India and Russia appeared to have been “lost to deepest, darkest China”, five days after the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin.

In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote: “Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!”

The US president posted a photograph of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the summit.

Modi had met Xi and Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit on Sunday and Monday.

The multilateral forum includes India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Iran and five Eurasian nations.

The meetings came five days after a 50% tariff on goods imported from India to the US took effect.

The Trump administration had announced on August 6 that it would double the tariffs on goods imported from India to 50% for purchasing Russian oil amid the Ukraine war. A 25% so-called reciprocal tariff had already taken effect.

On Monday, after the summit concluded, Trump had described the US trade relationship with India as “totally one-sided” and reiterated his allegations that New Delhi charged inordinately high tariffs on American goods.

Trump has repeatedly alleged that India’s imports were fuelling Russia’s war in Ukraine.

New Delhi had previously said that it was...

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