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

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said India and Russia seem to have been “lost” to China after their leaders met with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, expressing his annoyance at New Delhi and Moscow as Beijing pushes a new world order.

“Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!” Trump wrote in a social media post accompanying a photo of the three leaders together at Xi’s summit in China. 

Later on Friday, however, he told reporters he didn’t think the U.S. had lost India to China.

“I don’t think we have,” he said. “I’ve been very disappointed that India would be buying so much oil, as you know, from Russia. And I let them know that.”

Asked about Trump’s social media post, India’s foreign ministry told reporters in New Delhi that it had no comment. The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment and representatives for the Kremlin could not be immediately reached.

Xi hosted more than 20 leaders of non-Western countries for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in the Chinese port city of Tianjin, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Putin and Modi were seen holding hands at the summit as they walked toward Xi before all three men stood side by side. 

“I’ll always be friends with Modi,” Trump told reporters on Friday. “He’s a great prime minister. He’s great. I’ll always be friends, but I just don’t like what he’s doing at this particular moment. But India and the United States have a special relationship. There’s nothing to worry about. We just have moments on occasion.”

“Deeply appreciate and fully reciprocate President Trump’s sentiments and positive assessment of our ties,” the Indian PM said in an X post early Saturday.

India and the U.S. have a “very positive … forward-looking Comprehensive and Global Strategic Partnership,” Modi said.

Trump has chilled U.S.-India ties amid trade tensions and other disputes. Trump this week said he was “very disappointed” in Putin but not worried about growing Russia-China ties.

Trump has been frustrated at his inability to convince Russia and Ukraine to reach an end to their war, more than three years after Russian forces invaded Ukraine.

He told reporters on Thursday night at the White House that he planned to talk to Putin soon.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting by Shivam Patel in New Delhi and Rajveer Singh Pardesi in Bengaluru; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Doina Chiacu and Edmund Klamann)