'We've lost Russia to deepest, darkest China,' Trump says
U.S. President Donald Trump has said it "looks like we've lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest China," in reaction to pictures of the leaders of the three countries together at a summit in Tianjin earlier this week.
"May they have a long and prosperous future together," he wrote on Truth Social on Sept. 5.
The post was accompanied by a picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin.
During the summit, Xi called for a new multipolar world order which would challenge U.S.-driven democracy as the powering force of global affairs, and see a return to a world where superpowers control their own spheres of influence.
It's not clear when Trump believes Russia wasn't lost to the West — Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 ramped up to the biggest land war in Europe since World War II, with the launch of the full-scale invasion in 2022.
Since then, Ukraine's Western allies — including the U.S. — have provided billions of dollars in arms and aid to Ukraine in an attempt to stop Russia's aggression.
A U.S.-led peace process, instigated when Trump took office, has failed to bring peace, and Russia consistently and repeatedly refused to agree to any of Trump's demands.
China and India remain among Moscow's largest oil buyers, fueling Russia's war machine. The U.S. president has sought to disrupt these ties by threatening secondary sanctions against countries that continue trading with Russia.
On Aug. 1, Washington imposed a 25% tariff on all Indian imports, followed by additional tariffs on Aug. 6 specifically targeting India's continued purchases of Russian oil.
Trump has also threatened tariffs of up to 100% on Chinese exports if Beijing, which also provides Russia with dual-use technology, maintains its energy ties with Moscow.
Despite this pressure, cooperation between Russia, China, and India is deepening.
On Sept. 2, Russia's energy giant Gazprom and China's state-owned CNPC signed a binding deal to build the Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline, a 30-year project to send Russian gas to China.
Earlier this week, Trump conceded that ending Russia's war against Ukraine has proven more difficult than he anticipated. His peace efforts, now in their eighth month, have produced no breakthrough, while Moscow's strategic partners continue to bolster its war effort.
