Putin chides Trump for using ‘colonial era tactics’ to pressure leaders of India, China

Russian President Vladimir Putin has reprimanded his US counterpart Donald Trump for attempting to exert colonial-era pressure tactics on leaders of “powerful economies” like India and China, saying that is not the way to deal with the “partners”.

“Powerful economies” like India and China, with heavy populations, have their domestic political mechanism and laws, Putin, who is attending China’s victory parade, told the media here on Wednesday.

“When somebody tells you, they are going to punish you, you have to think about the leadership of those countries, those big courtiers, which have difficult periods of their history too, will react,” the Russian president said.

These countries had to deal with colonialists, with attacks on their sovereignty for long periods of time, he added.

“You have to understand that if one of them shows weakness, his political career will be over, so that influences his behaviour,” he said.

“The colonial era is over. They have to realise they cannot use this term when speaking with their partners,” Putin said, questioning Trump’s lack of understanding of those countries and leaders.

Trump singled out India and clamped 50 per cent tariffs for buying Russian oil.

He initially imposed 145 per cent tariffs on China and later climbed down and struck an interim deal with Beijing, reducing tariffs on Chinese goods from 145 per cent to 30 per cent, and Chinese tariffs on US goods fell from 125 per cent to 10 per cent.