Former national security adviser John Bolton said he thinks foreign policy under another term with former President Trump in the White House would not be “pretty.”
Bolton joined CNN’s Abby Phillip to discuss the recent trip Russian President Vladimir Putin took to North Korea and the meetings he had with leader Kim Jong Un.
When asked what it means for the Putin and Kim to have a close relationship if Trump is reelected, Bolton suggested the former president could boast his connections to both of them.
“Well, the Putin-Kim meeting in Korea was really a get together of two of the people in the world Donald Trump considers his best friends,” Bolton said in an excerpt highlighted by Mediaite.
The meeting between the two world leaders sparked a new international partnership. Russia and North Korea are vowing to offer each other mutual aid and protection against their enemies, as Moscow continues its war against Ukraine and Pyongyang attempts to boost its military power.
Bolton argued that the partnership signifies unity and is “definitely something to be worried about.”
“I mean, you hear a lot of Trump advocates trying to reassure people saying the second term is not going to look like the first term; it’s going to be rational foreign policy,” the former White House official said. “I think … that they’re deceiving people — perhaps unconsciously, perhaps hoping.”
Hope, he said, is not a strategy when it comes to Trump potentially taking office again.
“This [is] the look of American foreign policy and it’s not going to be pretty,” Bolton added.
North Korea has been supplying Russia with military equipment as the war in Ukraine carries on and nears the two-and-a-half-year mark.
Russia has provided economic assistance and technology transfers in return, including materials that could boost North Korea’s missile and space satellite sectors. Putin has also threatened to send weapons to Kim’s army if South Korea were to supply Ukraine with aid and arms.
The meeting raises international concerns, and the partnership could spell trouble for President Biden as he grapples with multiple foreign policy issues ahead of the election, and his competitor, Trump, has already signaled he is allied with both Kim and Putin.