Mixed reactions in US over Modi’s SCO trip

Visuals of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi attending the summit alongside Russia's Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping drew strong reactions — mostly of shock ,regret and disappointment -- from across America’s political and foreign policy establishment.

- Shashank Mattoo

“It was a shame to see Modi getting in bed --as a leader of the biggest democracy in the world ~ with the two biggest authoritarians in the world in Putin and Xi Jinping. That doesn’t make any sense. I'm not sure what he’s thinking particularly since India has been in a cold war -- and sometimes a hot war -- with China for decades,” said White House trade adviser Peter Navarro to reporters on Monday.

“We hope the Indian leader comes around to seeing that he needs to be with us and Europe and Ukraine and not Russia,” added Navarro.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dismissed the SCO gathering as “performative”. “This is a longstanding meeting, it’s called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and I think it's largely performative. I think at the end of the day, India is the most populous democracy in the world. Their values are much closer to ours and to China’s than to Russia's,” Bessent told Fox.