Amid Trump's foreign policy, China, Russia, and India are strengthening ties

In a recent article in The Washington Post, Max Boot, a foreign policy analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that Trump is "diminishing US power by absurdly lumping America's friends in with our foes." He cites as an example how Brazil, South Africa, and India are aligning more closely with China and Russia.

A further display of the growing solidarity of BRICS members will be on show at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin, northern China, which begins on Sunday. Chinese President Xi Jinping will host his Indian and Russian counterparts, Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin, as well as leaders from some 20 other countries from the Global South. This will be Modi's first visit to Chinese soil in seven years.

Ahead of the summit, the Kremlin is trying to initiate trilateral talks between China, Russia, and India after a six-year hiatus, aiming to strengthen the core of the BRICS alliance. Moscow believes that resuming a high-level dialogue between the three largest BRICS members could help calm long-standing tensions, especially between India and China, and present a more unified counterweight to the West.

India and China also have serious economic incentives for cooperation. Trump's huge tariffs have forced New Delhi to strengthen economic ties with China by resuming direct flights, easing visa restrictions, and increasing trade discussions. The two countries have also held talks to resolve long-standing disputes along their nearly 3,500-kilometer de facto border. During Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit to India last week, Beijing agreed to increase supplies of rare earth minerals to the South Asian country.

China controls more than 85% of global rare earth processing, while India urgently needs these minerals for clean energy, electric vehicles, and defense technologies.

However, this does not mean that the parties have no disagreements. India and China have serious disagreements on both political and economic issues, but growing pressure from Washington is forcing them to keep them on the back burner for now.