NEW DELHI: Russian President Vladimir Putin has sharply criticised US President Donald Trump for employing what he described as “colonial-era” pressure tactics against global powers like India and China.
Speaking to the media in Beijing on Wednesday, where he is attending China’s Victory Day parade, Putin took aim at Trump's aggressive economic policies, warning that such an approach undermines diplomacy with sovereign nations.
“Powerful economies like India and China, with heavy populations, have their domestic political mechanism and laws," Putin said, stressing that these countries are not to be treated as subordinates.
“When somebody tells you, they are going to punish you, you have to think about the leadership of those countries, those big countries, which have difficult periods of their history too, will react,” he noted, alluding to their historical struggles against colonial rule.
“You have to understand that if one of them shows weakness, his political career will be over, so that influences his behaviour,” Putin added, underlining the internal political stakes for leaders of such nations.
“The colonial era is over. They have to realise they cannot use this term when speaking with their partners,” he said, directly criticizing Trump’s approach and his apparent lack of understanding of the political and historical sensitivities of countries like India and China.
The remarks come in the wake of Trump’s trade measures against both countries. India was slapped with a 50% tariff on its purchase of Russian oil on key exports.