In Washington, John Bolton, a former U.S. national security adviser, has once again attacked President Donald Trump, saying that his administration has “set U.S.-India relations back decades, pushing Modi closer to Russia and China.” Bolton said this in an interview with the media and on his social media site X. He also said that China is trying to be an alternative to both the U.S. and Trump.
Bolton’s comments come at a time when tensions between New Delhi and Washington are at an all-time high, possibly the worst they’ve been in more than 20 years. The recent problems started after the U.S. put a 50% tax on goods coming from India. The tax includes a 25% extra charge on India’s purchase of Russian crude oil, which the Trump administration says indirectly helps Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.
The former NSA, who worked for Trump during his first term, stated that the president and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a very close personal relationship, but “that is gone now.” He told world leaders, including UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, that having a good relationship with Trump “won’t protect you from the worst” of his unpredictable foreign policy choices.
Bolton’s critique is even worse because it came right after the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Tianjin, China, where President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Prime Minister Modi. People in the West are worried that the summit will lead to the construction of a new axis against the U.S. Bolton openly relates this to Trump’s broad tariff policy.
The former national security advisor said that Trump’s actions toward New Delhi have hurt years of bipartisan U.S. efforts to get India to move away from its Cold War ties with Russia and see China as its biggest security threat. “That has changed. “I think it can be turned back again, but this is a very bad time,” Bolton added.
Since leaving the White House in 2019, Bolton has been publicly criticizing the president. He is under investigation by the FBI for allegedly mishandling secret information, which is why he made these comments. Last month, police searched his house in Maryland and his office in Washington. His lawyer has dubbed this “politically motivated.”