Trump 'mismanaged' India 'spoiling decades-long' ties: Ex-US Envoy
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New York: Former US envoy to Japan Rahm Emanuel has said that President Trump has "thrown away 40 years" of efforts to enhance the country’s relations with India.
Describing that India could have been a counterweight for the US against China, Emanuel said Trump made a ‘major strategic blunder’ because of his ‘ego’ and ‘some money from Pakistan’.
‘...mismanagement of India, which is a major, major counterweight against China, not only on the manufacturing and technology side but also on the military side... The President of the United States has literally thrown away 40 years of meticulous strategic planning and preparation in enhancing and warming relationships through democratic administrations,’ Emanuel was quoted as saying.
Emanuel pointed out that Trump acted so because Prime Minister Modi would not announce the US president deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for the ceasefire between India and Pakistan which Trump claimed to have worked out.
Adding further he said that Trump mismanaged the country’s relations with India ‘out of his ego and for the money from Pakistan, which was paying both his son and the son of his aide, Steve Witkoff’.
‘This is a major strategic blunder that China has used to their advantage. That is on the strategic level,’ he reportedly said.
After Trump slapped a whopping 50 per cent tariff on Indian products, the relations between both countries remain strained.
Trump has been pressing India against buying Russian oil blaming that India was fueling Russia’s war in Ukraine, which India denied.
It is reported citing the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) that India is the second-largest buyer of Russian fossil fuels behind China.