The government of India criticized a post by the United States president, Donald Trump, in which he called the country a “hellhole.” In a statement, the spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, Randhir Jaiswal, described the remarks as “misinformation, inappropriate and in bad taste.”
“They certainly do not reflect the reality of the India–United States relationship, which has long been based on mutual respect and shared interests,” reads a portion of the statement.
The comment by Trump comes less than a month before the planned visit of the American Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to India, aimed at overcoming recent frictions between the countries.
On Wednesday (22), Trump posted on his social media a text denouncing the American constitutional right to citizenship for all those born in the country, accusing Indian immigrants in the tech industry of not hiring native white Americans, while the supposed Indian hires did not master English.
“A baby here becomes a citizen instantly, and then they bring the entire family from China, India or some other hellhole on the planet,” reads a portion of the text.
The India–United States relationship has been through turbulence since Donald Trump took office and imposed punitive tariffs on the country in the tariff episode. Some of the duties were rolled back in February, after an agreement in which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to stop buying Russian oil in response.
