John Bolton, the former National Security Advisor in the first Trump administration and a vocal critic of the US president, slammed the current administration’s policies toward India, accusing Trump of “shredding” decades of efforts to strengthen the partnership with New Delhi.
“Donald Trump, in the past weeks, has essentially upended that and for a variety of reasons sent India back toward Russia, to grow closer to China, and just shredding these decades of efforts to try and change that alignment,” he told Sky News in an interview on Monday. He highlighted how, before Trump 2.0, the US had attempted to “wean India away from its Cold War attachment to the Soviet Union and China.”
“The West has spent decades, US in particular, trying to wean India away from its Cold War attachment to the Soviet Union [and] Russia, buying sophisticated weapons from them and cautioning India on the danger posed by China, symbolised by what’s called the Asian Security Quad – Japan, India, Australia and the United States,” he added.
He also recounted a series of steps from the Trump administration that “have offended the Indians,” including the abrupt derailment of trade negotiations. “The Indians thought they were in close negotiations to solve this, as Britain did with Trump, and Trump just dismissed it and set 25 per cent tariffs. Trump’s India strategy
Trump whacked India with another 25 per cent. (He) did not tariff Russia, did not tariff China, the largest purchaser of Russian oil and gas,” Bolton explained. According to him, Trump’s attempt to take “full credit” for the India-Pakistan conflict in May made the situation “worse.” “When the recent escalation between Pakistan and India over a terrorist attack in Kashmir occurred, it escalated, then came back down.
Trump took full credit for it as one of the six or seven wars that he stopped this year to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, which has made India incandescent,” he noted. Trump on Monday escalated his criticism of India’s trade practices, terming the economic relationship as “one-sided disaster.” Bolton has come under scrutiny from the current administration, with federal agents raiding his home and offices last week. The US media reports that the raid was linked to allegations that Bolton owned classified documents.
Meanwhile John Mearsheimer, a leading American international relations expert and Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, has termed the Trump administration’s India policy a “colossal blunder” and asserted that secondary tariffs on India for buying Russian oil “won’t work.”
“This is a colossal blunder on our part. It’s hard to believe, but what’s going on here? It (Secondary sanctions) won’t work with India. The Indians have made it clear that they will not cut off the importation of oil from Russia. Indians are not going to cave,” he told the podcast platform “Daniel Davis Deep Dive” last week. Mearsheimer also accused Trump of “poisoning” a “terrific” relationship with India.
“So, when Trump moved into the White House this past January, relations between the United States and India were really terrific, and for the purposes of containing China, which is our principal foreign policy mission, having good relations with India is essential. But what’s happened since then and now with these secondary sanctions is [that] we have poisoned relations with India,” he added. Trump’s India strategy
He also pointed to a recent German newspaper report claiming that the US president had unsuccessfully tried to reach Prime Minister Narendra Modi on four separate occasions. “The Indians are furious with us, almost to a person. Trump has tried to call Modi four times, and Modi refuses to talk to him. And furthermore, Modi is moving closer to the Chinese, and he’s moving closer to the Russians.
So, this not only does it work, it’s indeed counterproductive. Nevertheless, here we are,” he explained. Mearsheimer targeted Peter Navarro, the White House Senior Advisor on Trade and Manufacturing, for leading a failed strategy which does not have a “happy ending.” “There’s nobody out there who’s applauding this move, except for people like Peter Navarro. I don’t understand what the story is as to how this has a happy ending. Are they going to make the argument that India is going to cave, that we have coercive leverage over India to the point where we can bring the Indians to their knees? Is that the argument? I don’t know anybody who believes that, and everything India has done so far says that argument is wrong,” he added. Trump’s India strategy
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