Hellhole remarks puts Trump-Modi optics under strain

TOI Correspondent from Washington: US President Donald Trump on Thursday befouled Washington's already dodgy ties with the two largest countries in the world, reposting a four-page racist screed by a supporter that called India and China “hellholes” and accused them of exploiting America’s birthright citizenship privileges.

The MAGA supremo, seen as unhinged and erratic by a growing number of Americans and known for posting unfiltered garbage, chose to repost an anti-immigrant tirade by conservative radio host Michael Savage, who espouses nativist nationalism, emphasising borders, language and culture. In his screed, Savage claims that under birthright citizenship, “a baby here becomes an instant citizen, and then they bring the entire family from China or India or some other hellhole on the planet.”



In language that echoed crude nativist tropes, he alleged that immigrants from these countries exploit 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 passing endorsement or a casual “like.” It was a wholesale amplification of Savage’s commentary, effectively elevating the rhetoric into the mainstream political discourse of a sitting president. By choosing to repost the entire commentary without caveat or distancing language, Trump was seen as endorsing not just the policy critique, but the rhetoric itself.

The repost comes even as the US Supreme Court weighs the legality of Trump’s executive order seeking to curtail birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment. It also coincides with slipping approval ratings and a contentious midterm election cycle, suggesting that immigration—and the cultural anxieties surrounding it—remain central to Trump’s political playbook.

US officials, some of whom are clearly frustrated by Trump’s unfiltered posts and statements, were left to clean up the mess by regurgitating some complementary things he has said about India in the past. The MAGA boss has often spoken of his personal rapport with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, invoking personal camaraderie and great friendship, while rarely articulating a substantive policy vision for US-India relations.

Despite the gloss American diplomats attempted to put on the fiasco, with the US embassy in New Delhi reaching out to the media to soften the latest slur, former officials are acknowledging that US-India ties are currently at an all-time low. Rahm Emanuel, a former Obama White House chief of staff, said at a Harvard event recently that the Trump administration had basically spat on India’s face, even as many regional experts continue to be mystified by the US president’s embrace of Pakistan, a country he described as a terrorist haven during his first term. India's external affairs ministry said it had seen Trump's post without elaborating.

Trump’s record is littered with controversial—and often explicitly racist—remarks stretching back years. During his first presidency, he reportedly referred to African nations, along with Haiti, as “shithole countries” in 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 for the Central Park Five case—five Black and Latino teenagers later exonerated after spending years in prison. Even after their innocence was established, Trump continued to question their exoneration, a stance widely criticised as racially charged and emblematic of a broader pattern of prejudice that goes back to his father, Fred Trump, seen as an exploitative land shark.

Trump’s political career itself began with the so-called “birther” conspiracy targeting Barack Obama, falsely claiming the first Black US president was not born in the US Throughout his campaigns, Trump also called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslim immigration, described Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” and repeatedly warned of an “invasion” from the southern border. In that context, the Savage repost appears less an aberration than a continuation.
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