‘Trump doesn’t have any strategic sense’: Ex-NSA says US needs to work with India

US President Donald Trump has no strategic sense and is only concerned about the sale of oil, said former National Security Advisor of the United States, John Bolton. He added that perhaps Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s good personal relationship would help the countries tide over this crisis.

Speaking with ANI, Bolton said “Trump doesn't have any strategic sense at all for what's in America's best interest”.

“Talking about taking over Greenland is contributing to the disarray within the NATO alliance and really could cause permanent damage at a time when we are faced with an enormous threat from China and its hegemonic aspirations all along the Indo-Pacific perimeter. We need to be working with India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and others against the threat,” he said.

“But Trump is just obsessed with these tariffs and the sale of oil. Yet he has added a tariff on India, but not a tariff to China, which purchases considerably more Russian oil, or on other countries like Turkey that purchase a lot of Russian oil. So, I think it caused real trouble in the US-India relations. It is a self-inflicted wound by Trump himself. I wish there were some way we could get him and Modi talking directly again and see if they could find a solution. I think Trump believes he has a very good personal relationship with Modi and maybe that’s the way to get the crisis behind us,” he said.

Meanwhile, Trump said that Modi was unhappy with him for imposing steep tariffs on India. He repeated that he has a good relationship with Modi. "I have a very good relationship with him. He's not that happy with me because you know they're paying a lot of tariffs now because they're not doing the oil, but they are, they've now reduced it very substantially, as you know, from Russia,” he said.

Before that he had indicated that the US might impose higher tariffs on India if it does not stop purchasing Russian oil altogether. He said it was important to make him happy and that PM Modi knew Trump was not happy with him. "PM Modi's a very good man. He's a good guy. He knew I was not happy. It was important to make me happy. They do trade, and we can raise tariffs on them very quickly,” he had said.