'Bad news for West': Ex-US NSA says Trump drove India closer to Moscow, Beijing

Former US National Security Advisor John Bolton has warned that decades of Western efforts to shift India away from Russia and China risk being undone, blaming Donald Trump’s policies for driving New Delhi back towards Moscow and Beijing.

"There's a lot of bad news here, very little good news. The West has spent decades, the US in particular, trying to wean India away from its Cold War attachment to the Soviet Union, Russia, buying sophisticated weapons from them, and cautioning India on the danger posed by China," Bolton told Sky News when asked about the significance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting China for the SCO Summit. 

He said this long-term push had been symbolized by the Asian security Quad grouping of Japan, India, Australia, and the US. "Donald Trump in the past weeks has essentially upended that and for a variety of reasons now sent India back toward Russia to grow closer to China and just shredding these decades of efforts to try and change that alignment. I'm not saying this can't be fixed, but it's going to take a lot of work and I don't see it starting anytime soon."

Asked whether Trump's tariffs were a decisive factor, Bolton pointed to a series of steps that alienated India. "It's a series of things that Trump has done that have offended the Indians. The basic tariffs that Trump wants which I think as a macro-level economic phenomena are disaster for everybody but the Indians thought they were in close negotiations to solve this as Britain did with Trump. And Trump just dismissed it and set 25% tariffs, then carried through on his threat to either tariff Russia or impose secondary tariffs on countries buying Russian oil and gas. Trump whacked India with another 25%. Did not tariff Russia. Did not tariff China, the largest purchaser of Russian oil and gas," Bolton said.

He added that Trump further angered New Delhi by claiming credit for defusing tensions after a terror attack in Kashmir. "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."

Bolton also called the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation "largely a propaganda show," but noted it reflects real power shifts. "It demonstrates there's a reality behind it though. China's hegemonic ambitions in East and Southeast Asia, Central Asia, former republics of the Soviet Union. Again, all of which the US, Japan, Australia, and many in Europe have been trying to prevent from happening. But Donald Trump's tariff policies, his unwillingness to consider even beneficial diplomatic moves in a larger strategic context have given Xi Jinping and the Chinese an opportunity. Whether they can exploit it or not remains to be seen."