Prime Minister Modi and US President Donald Trump (file photo)
TOI reporter in Washington: U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday retweeted a four-page racist rant from a supporter that tarnished Washington’s already precarious relationship with the world’s two largest countries, calling India and China “hell” and accusing them of taking advantage of America’s birthright citizenship privileges.The MAGA top leader, viewed by a growing number of Americans as unhinged, erratic and known for posting unfiltered trash, chose to retweet the anti-immigration tirades of conservative radio host Michael Savage, who espouses a nativist nationalism that emphasizes borders, language and culture. In his lengthy article, Savage claimed that under birthright citizenship, “the babies here immediately become citizens, and then they bring the whole family over from China or India or some other hellhole on earth.“Using language that echoed crude nativist tropes, he claimed immigrants from these countries were exploiting the system through so-called “birth tourism” and described them as “gangsters with laptops,” accusing them of undermining American workers and institutions.The post, shared on Trump’s Truth social platform, was not a momentary endorsement or casual “like.” It was a wholesale amplification of Savage’s comments, effectively elevating his remarks into the current president’s mainstream political discourse. By choosing to repost the entire comment without any warning or distancing language, Trump was seen as endorsing not only the policy criticism but the rhetoric itself.The retweet also comes as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs the legality of Trump’s executive order seeking to restrict birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment. It also coincides with declining support and a contentious midterm election cycle, suggesting that immigration and the cultural anxieties surrounding it remain central to Trump’s political strategy.Some among U.S. officials are clearly frustrated by Trump’s unfiltered posts and statements, and they can only pick up the pieces by repeating some of the additional things he has said about India in the past. The Make America Great Again boss often speaks of his personal rapport with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, evoking personal camaraderie and great friendship but rarely articulating a substantive policy vision for the U.S.-India relationship.While U.S. diplomats try to whitewash the fiasco and the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi turns to the media to soften the latest smear campaign, former officials admit that U.S.-India relations are now at an all-time low. Former Obama White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said at a recent event at Harvard University that the Trump administration is essentially spitting in India’s face, even as many regional experts remain baffled by the US president’s embrace of Pakistan, which he described as a haven for terrorists during his first term. India’s foreign ministry said it had seen Trump’s post but did not elaborate.Trump’s record is littered with controversial and often blatantly racist remarks that date back years. During his first term as president, he reportedly referred to African countries and Haiti as “shithole countries” at a White House meeting while expressing a preference for immigrants from Nordic countries.Earlier, in one of the most notorious cases, Trump took out full-page newspaper ads in 1989 calling for the death penalty in the case of the Central Park Five – five black and Latino teenagers who were acquitted after years in prison. Even after they were exonerated, Trump continued to challenge their innocence, a stance widely criticized as racist and emblematic of a broader pattern of bias dating back to his father, Fred Trump, who was seen as an exploitative land shark.Trump’s political career itself began with the so-called “birther” conspiracy against Barack Obama, falsely claiming that the nation’s first black president was not born in the United States. Throughout the campaign, Trump also called for a “complete shutdown” of Muslim immigration, described Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and repeatedly warned of an “invasion” from the southern border. In this case, the retweet of “The Savages” is less an aberration than a continuation.
