‘Trump was against exemptions for India’

nWASHINGTON: President Donald Trump personally shut down a fierce debate among his aides in April 2019 on additional exemptions for countries such as India from US sanctions on Iran oil purchases and ordered wavering officials to “go to zero”, and he had “not been sympathetic” to India’s case as made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former National Security Adviser John Bolton writes in his book, “The Room Where It Happened”.

These deliberations took place around April 18, and the United States announced on April 21 the end of waivers from secondary sanctions for countries that continued to buy Iranian crude, forcing India, a net importer of crude, and others impacted to look for new suppliers.

It was not an easy decision, according to Bolton, who gives the first peek at behind-the-scene discussions that preceded and is known for his hawkish stand on Iran. “But India is so important,” he writes, citing state department officials. Trump ended the discussions on April 18. “Go to zero,” Bolton quotes the President as saying, and goes on to add that “in a phone call with Pompeo, Trump had not been sympathetic to India’s Prime Minister, saying, ‘He’ll be okay’.” Iran was the second largest supplier of crude for India at the time and the sanctions disrupted its oil supplies. Indian investments in Chabahar port in Iran, which provides India crucial trade routes into Afghanistan and Central Asian countries, were left untouched. India and other countries, including US allies Japan and South Korea, were granted waivers from the first round of sanctions that came into effect in November 2018.

In the book, the former NSA has been dismissive of the February-march 2019 tensions between India and Pakistan after the capture of an IAF pilot by Pakistan. The US had waded into the issue to prevent an escalation between the two countries. “After hours of phone calls, the crisis passed, perhaps because, in substance, there never really had been one,” he writes of the crisis.