After President Donald Trump applied 50 percent tariffs on all imported goods from India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met this weekend with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and is planning to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Note: Trump has said he wants India to stop importing Russian oil, which is helping to finance Russia’s war against Ukraine.)
Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul responded to the meeting between Modi, Xi and Putin on social media: “How in the hell did Trump so alienate Modi that he’s now attending a summit with autocrats, Xi and Putin? Geez. Just last year, China and India were at war with each other! Trump and team are just bad at diplomacy.”
Modi plays both sides, always has.
— Brigham McCown
(@BAMcCown) August 31, 2025
Progressive political pundit Richard Angwin replied to McFaul: “Trump’s bungled diplomacy turned Modi from ally to autocrat summit buddy, proving his ‘art of the deal’ is just the art of alienating everyone except dictators.”
Brigham McCown, former advisor to the 2016 Trump presidential transition team and to Trump’s Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, and more recently former CEO of the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company which owns the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, replied to McFaul: “Modi plays both sides, always has.”
McCown also amplified an article quoting Trump’s former U.S. Ambassador to the United States, Nikki Haley, who said “Partnership between the US and India to counter China should be a no-brainer” and emphasized the importance of rebuilding the US-India relationship to counter China.
Haley said, “Unlike Communist China, the rise of a democratic India does not threaten the free world.”
McCown added: “While I agree in principle, #India continues to play both sides in much the same way as #Hungary tends to do.” (Note: McCown and Haley are both fellows at the Hudson Institute.)
While I agree in principle, #India continues to play both sides in much the same way as #Hungary tends to do.
’’Partnership between the US and India to counter China should be a no-brainer’’: Nikki Haley – International | Daily Mirror https://t.co/NvRdajB435
— Brigham McCown
Note: In June, during a phone call with Modi, Trump — who has repeatedly implied that he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for allegedly ending “six or seven wars” since his return to the White House in January — mentioned that Pakistan was going to nominate him for the prestigious prize.
According to The New York Times, Modi told Trump that the U.S. President had nothing to do with the recent India-Pakistan cease-fire and refused to engage in a conversation about a Nobel nomination.