Trump Planning New Superclub With India? All About Buzz On New Core-5 Grouping

US President Donald Trump is reportedly exploring a new elite 'C5', or 'Core Five', forum of world powers that would bring together America, Russia, China, India and Japan, sidelining the existing Europe-dominated G7 and other traditional democracy and wealth based groupings. 

While so far there has been no official word on the matter, American publication Politico reported that the idea for the new hard-power group came up in a longer, unpublished version of the National Security Strategy that the White House published last week.

The publication said it could not confirm the existence of the longer plan, but it was reported by Defense One.

The idea is reportedly to create a new body of major powers, one that isn't hemmed in by the G7's requirements that the countries be both wealthy and democratically governed. 

"The strategy proposes a 'Core Five,' or C5, consisting of the United States, China, Russia, India, and Japan – several countries with populations over 100 million. It would meet regularly, like the G7, at summits on specific topics. The first on the proposed C5 agenda: security in the Middle East, specifically the normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia," the report said.

A "Trumpian Idea"?

According to Politico, the White House has denied the existence of this document, with press secretary Hannah Kelly insisting that "no alternative, private, or secret version" of the 33-page official plan exists.

However, national security experts believe the idea has a "Trumpian" ring to it, and the creation of the C5 could be appropriate for the current White House.

"This is consistent with how we believe President Trump views the world, which is non-ideological, through a sympathy for strong players, and through a tendency to cooperate with other great powers that maintain spheres of influence in their region," Torrey Taussig, who served as director for European affairs on the US National Security Council during the Biden administration, told the publication.

She noted that Europe does not feature in the theoretical C5, "which, I guess, would make Europeans believe that this administration views Russia as a leading power capable of exercising its sphere of influence in Europe."

Michael Sobolik, an aide to US Republican Senator Ted Cruz during the first Trump administration, noted that the creation of C5 would be a departure from Trump's China policy in his first term as president.

"The first Trump administration adhered to the concept of great power competition, and that's how we framed and discussed relations with China... This is just a huge departure from that," he said.

Allies' Concerns

The report comes at a time when Washington is already debating how much the second Trump administration intends to upend the world order. The idea casts existing forums like the G7 and G20 as inadequate for a multipolar world, prioritising deal‑making among major population and military‑economic powers.

US allies view the move as legitimisation of "strongmen" by elevating Russia over Europe and potentially weakening Western unity and NATO cohesion.