FRANCE 24 spoke to John Bolton, who served as national security adviser to Donald Trump from 2018 to 2019. He has since become an outspoken critic of the 45th US president. Bolton said his former boss "admires" strong leaders like Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping, and that both of them see Trump "as an easy mark". Explaining that Putin "knows how to deal with" Trump, he warned that if the latter is reelected, "unfortunately, he (Putin) would get from Trump a very satisfactory solution from Russia's point of view in Ukraine".
Speaking to FRANCE 24 from Washington, Bolton also expressed concern that if reelected, Trump would accept Xi Jinping's terms on US-Chinese trade differences "in a heartbeat". "China would again try to take advantage of us (Americans), as they did in earlier negotiations," the former diplomat added.
