Did Trump use the India Today cover as a teaser before the India-US deal?

New Delhi: US President Donald Trump shared an India Today magazine cover featuring himself and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Truth Social a few hours before announcing a tariff rollback for Indian goods, a timing that appeared to hint at the trade deal message that followed.

The cover, part of India Today’s “Newsmakers of the Year 2025” edition, carries the headline “The Mover & The Shaker” and places Modi and Trump side by side. 

Trump reposted the cover image without a caption, but it landed in the run-up to his India-US trade announcement.

Trump later said the US would cut its “reciprocal tariff” on Indian goods to 18 per cent from 25 per cent. 

In the same post, he claimed Modi agreed to stop buying Russian oil and increase purchases from the United States, and suggested Venezuela as another potential source.

The sequence underscored how legacy media assets can travel globally at speed when amplified by a political figure with a direct-to-audience platform. 

A magazine cover, typically consumed as a domestic media moment, can become a global signal when it is pushed out by a head of state ahead of an announcement.

Recently, BestMediaInfo had reported how an India Today-Aaj Tak Kremlin interview put the network at the centre of global Vladimir Putin coverage, with international outlets picking up and attributing quotes, turning an Indian broadcast into a global reference point. 

Trump’s repost operates in the same ecosystem of amplification, where a domestic media product becomes part of an international political narrative once it is carried by a global power figure.

For India’s media and advertising ecosystem, the moment is notable because it shows how editorial properties, covers, interviews, flagship formats, can punch beyond their original distribution when they enter the global political stream.