The Ministry of External Affairs gave a terse, four-word brush-off on Thursday to US President Donald Trump's viral Truth Social post calling India and China "hellholes".
MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, responding to media queries at his weekly press briefing in New Delhi, said: "We have seen some reports. That's where I leave it."
"The remarks are obviously uninformed, inappropriate and in poor taste. They certainly do not reflect the reality of the India-US relationship, which has long been based on mutual respect and shared interests," Jaiswal said.
VIDEO | On US president Donald Trump's social media post mentioning India and China as 'hellhole', MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal (@MEAIndia) says, "We have seen some reports. That's where I leave it."
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) April 23, 2026
(Full video available on PTI Videos - https://t.co/n147TvrpG7)#Delhi pic.twitter.com/I70F7pfCl9
The deliberately minimal response signalled New Delhi's intent to avoid a public confrontation with Washington over the remarks.
The post that drew the question originated with American radio host Michael Savage, whose commentary Trump reshared on Truth Social on Wednesday.
In it, Savage alleged that immigrants from India and China exploit US laws through "birth tourism" and welfare abuse, claiming people from the two nations come to the US to "drop a baby in the ninth month," with the law turning them into "instant" US citizens.
The language was blunt. "A baby here becomes an instant citizen, and then they bring the entire family in from China or India or some other hellhole on the planet," the post read.
It also described Indian and Chinese immigrants as "gangsters with laptops" who have "stepped on our flag," adding: "They've done more damage to this nation than all the mafia families put together."
Savage, a right-wing "shock jock" with the second-most popular radio show in the United States, made the remarks while reacting to Supreme Court hearings on birthright citizenship, attacking the ACLU attorney defending the practice — whom he described as a "Chinese-American who is a classic ACLU attorney." Trump reshared the full transcript and video without comment or disclaimer.
The post came as Trump's own legal case was faltering. He watched from the front row as a majority of justices expressed deep skepticism toward his executive order seeking to deny citizenship to US-born children of immigrants. He walked out of the courtroom midway through arguments.
Trump had also falsely claimed a day earlier in a CNBC interview that no other country offers birthright citizenship. In reality, about three dozen nations — including Canada, Mexico and most of South America — grant automatic citizenship to children born on their soil.
Even as the bilateral tensions have periodically flared over tariffs, trade and rhetoric — treating the relationship as too consequential to let a social media post define it.
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