As Trump hugs Xi and plugs Sharif, India feels the squeeze

TOI correspondent from Washington: The clearest sign yet of a widening US-India diplomatic rift came this weekend from the White House and the United Nations, where India was denouncing Pakistan for what it called a litany of “falsehoods” and “deceit,” even as US President Donald Trump appeared to give those very claims a presidential imprimatur.Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had used his UN General Assembly address to revive Islamabad’s account of the 2025 India-Pakistan conflict, crediting Trump with a “timely intervention” that, he said, prevented a wider war. On Friday night, shortly after China’s President Xi Jinping had departed for Beijing, Trump posted an 87-second excerpt of Sharif’s speech on Truth Social without comment. The clip included Sharif’s praise of Trump and Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir.The timing was striking.