United States (U.S.) President Donald Trump said on Monday that India offered to reduce its tariffs on U.S. goods to zero, at a time when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly showed solidarity with the Chinese and Russian leaders, faced with trade pressure from Washington.
Calling the U.S. relationship with India “one-sided,” Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social: “Now they have offered to reduce their tariffs to zero, but it is already too late. They should have done it many years ago.”
The Indian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to Trump’s comments, which followed the imposition of total tariffs of up to 50 percent on Indian goods, which led to questions about the future of U.S.-Indian relations.
Trump wrote this on X at the time when Modi, at the summit in China with more than 20 leaders of non-Western countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, an initiative supported by China, which gained new momentum from Trump’s global tariff offensive.
In a photo intended to convey a mood of solidarity, Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin are shown holding hands as they cheerfully walk toward Xi before the summit.
Then, in the Russian president’s limousine, he went to their bilateral meeting at which Putin, in Russian, addressed him as “dear prime minister, dear friend.”
