India denounces ‘hellhole’ remark shared by Trump

India’s Foreign Ministry says comments by US radio host Michael Savage, circulated by Trump, are ‘uninformed’.

Trump did not make the remark himself, but reposted it without comment on his Truth Social account on Thursday.

The statement came from conservative radio host Michael Savage.

Criticising US birthright citizenship – which Trump has sought to restrict – Savage said, “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.”
Reacting late on Thursday, India’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the remark was “obviously uninformed, inappropriate and in poor taste”.

The US Embassy in New Delhi said, “The president has said ‘India is a great country with a very good friend of mine at the top’.”
China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately comment on the matter.

India’s main opposition Congress party called the “hellhole” remark “extremely insulting and anti-India.

It hurts every Indian”.

“Prime Minister ⁠Narendra Modi should take up this matter with the US President ⁠and register a strong objection,” the party said on X.

Indian government data shows nearly 5.5 million people of Indian origin live in the US.

Indian Americans and Chinese Americans are the biggest groups of Asian origin in the US.

Trump and Modi enjoyed ‌warm ties during Trump’s first term, but relations cooled after India was hit last year with some of the highest US tariffs, many of which were rolled back this year.

India and the US are ‌now ‌ working on a trade deal aimed at preventing any renewed tariff increases and boosting sales to each other.

Trump has repeatedly used insulting language to refer to foreign nations and immigrant communities, including recently calling Somali immigrants “garbage”.

In 2018, Trump made global headlines for referring to El Salvador, Haiti and African nations as “s**thole countries”.