US President Donald Trump reposted a video and comments from a conservative pundit calling India a “hellhole”, prompting the South Asian country on Thursday to criticise the remarks as “inappropriate”.

The comments come ahead of a planned visit next month to India by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who would seek to turn the page on recent tensions between the normally friendly powers.

Trump late on Wednesday reposted on social media a video and a screed apparently written by someone else denouncing the US constitutional right to citizenship of everyone born in the country.

The post accused Indian immigrants in the tech industry of not hiring white native-born Americans and inaccurately alleged that Indian immigrants lack English proficiency.

“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,” the post said.

Indian foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal responded that the remarks were “obviously uninformed, inappropriate and in poor taste”.