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‘It’s gone now': Ex-US NSA on Donald Trump's personal rapport with PM Modi
John Bolton said Donald Trump had a very good relationship personally with Narendra Modi but that's gone now, and it's a lesson to everybody.
Former US National Security Adviser John Bolton has said that President Donald Trump’s once-strong personal rapport with Prime Minister Narendra Modi is no longer intact and blamed the Republican President for "pushing back" the bilateral ties by decades.
“Trump had a very good relationship personally with Modi. I think that's gone now, and it's a lesson to everybody” Bolton said in a recent interview with a British media portal LBC.
He was asked whether the shape of the world is changing, seeing Prime Minister Modi standing alongside his Russian and Chinese counterparts at the SCO summit.
Replying to which, he said, “I think about 100 percent of this goes to Donald Trump and the way he’s treated India on a number of fronts over the past several months, setting back decades of effort to pull India away from its Cold War relationship with Russia… That progress has been reversed.”
Bolton’s comments came as more than 20 world leaders, Russia's Vladimir Putin and Modi, attended a summit in China hosted by President Xi Jinping.
The gathering has raised concerns about an emerging bloc challenging Washington, after Trump’s decision to impose sweeping tariffs on countries around the world.
Among the worst hit by US tariffs is New Delhi, facing a 25 per cent levy on Indian goods, along with an additional 25 per cent on India’s imports of Russian crude oil. The combined duties have pushed US tariffs on Indian products to 50 per cent.
Trump's ‘prism of personal relations’
Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019, also criticised the Republican President’s approach to international relations.
“I think Trump sees international relations through the prism of his personal relations with leaders. So if he has a good relationship with Vladimir Putin, the US has a good relationship with Russia, that's obviously not the case,” he said.
Meanwhile, a US appeals court has ruled Trump’s tariff measures “illegal,” intensifying domestic opposition to his trade agenda.
Bolton himself is facing legal scrutiny. His Washington-area home was raided by federal agents in August on the orders of Trump-appointed FBI Director Kash Patel. Officials said the operation was part of a national security probe “in search of classified records.”
