WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that John Bolton, dismissed a day earlier as national security adviser, had been a “disaster” on North Korea policy, “out of line” on Venezuela, and did not get along with important administration officials.
Trump said Bolton had made mistakes, including offending North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un by demanding that he follow a “Libyan model” and hand over all his nuclear weapons.
“We were set back very badly when John Bolton talked about the Libyan model ... what a disaster,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
“He’s using that to make a deal with North Korea? And I don’t blame Kim Jong Un for what he said after that, and he wanted nothing to do with John Bolton. And that’s not a question of being tough. That’s a question of being not smart to say something like that.”
Trump also said he disagreed with Bolton on Venezuela but offered no specifics. “I thought he was way out of line and I think I’ve proven to be right,” the president said.
Trump said Bolton, with his abrasive, hard-line approach, “wasn’t getting along with people in the administration that I consider very important.”
“John wasn’t in line with what we were doing,” he added.
Trump said he got along with Bolton and hoped they parted on good terms, but added: “Maybe we have and maybe we haven’t. I have to run the country the way we’re running the country.”
Trump had been growing more impatient with the failure to oust socialist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro through a US-led campaign of sanctions and diplomacy in which Bolton was a driving force.
Bolton was also a chief architect of the Trump administration’s hard-line policy on Iran.
Asked whether he would consider easing sanctions on Iran to secure a meeting with its leader President Hassan Rouhani at this month’s UN General Assembly, Trump replied: “We’ll see what happens.” Bolton had opposed such a step.
North Korea has denounced Bolton as a “war maniac” and “human scum.” Last year, it threatened to call off a first summit between Kim and Trump after Bolton suggested the Libya model of unilateral disarmament. In the past Bolton had proposed using military force to overthrow the country’s ruling dynasty.
Trump’s efforts to engage with North Korea nearly fell apart altogether in February after he followed Bolton’s advice at a second summit in Hanoi and handed Kim a piece of paper that called for the transfer of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and bomb fuel to the United States.
Trump announced he had fired Bolton a day after North Korea signaled a new willingness to resume stalled denuclearization talks, but it then proceeded with the latest in a spate of missile test launches.
Analysts say Bolton’s removal could help US efforts to revive the talks but will not make it easier for Washington to persuade Pyongyang to give up nuclear weapons.
Washington has given no indication so far that it will soften its demand for North Korea’s ultimate denuclearization, even though with Bolton gone, the risky all-or-nothing gambit is unlikely to be repeated so bluntly.
“This change in personnel could carve out some space for new approaches or thinking about what defines success and how to achieve it,” said Jenny Town at 38 North, a Washington-based North Korea project. “Whether it actually does or whether Bolton’s view was more deeply entrenched in US thinking on this matter is yet to be seen.”
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Trump says Bolton a ‘disaster’ on North Korea, ‘out of line’ on Venezuela
Trump says Bolton a ‘disaster’ on North Korea, ‘out of line’ on Venezuela
- Trump said Bolton had made mistakes, including offending North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un
- “I thought he was way out of line and I think I’ve proven to be right” the president said
China’s top diplomat to visit Somalia on Africa tour
- Stop in Mogadishu provides diplomatic boost after Israel became the first country to formally recognize breakaway Somaliland
- Tour focusses on Beijing's strategic trade access across eastern and southern Africa
BEIJING: China’s top diplomat began his annual New Year tour of Africa on Wednesday, focusing on strategic trade access across eastern and southern Africa as Beijing seeks to secure key shipping routes and resource supply lines.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to Ethiopia, Africa’s fastest-growing large economy; Somalia, a Horn of Africa state offering access to key global shipping lanes; Tanzania, a logistics hub linking minerals-rich central Africa to the Indian Ocean; and Lesotho, a small southern African economy squeezed by US trade measures. His trip this year runs until January 12.
Beijing aims to highlight countries it views as model partners of President Xi Jinping’s flagship “Belt and Road” infrastructure program and to expand export markets, particularly in young, increasingly affluent economies such as Ethiopia, where the IMF forecasts growth of 7.2 percent this year.
China, the world’s largest bilateral lender, faces growing competition from the European Union to finance African infrastructure, as countries hit by pandemic-era debt strains now seek investment over loans.
“The real litmus test for 2026 isn’t just the arrival of Chinese investment, but the ‘Africanization’ of that investment. As Wang Yi visits hubs like Ethiopia and Tanzania, the conversation must move beyond just building roads to building factories,” said Judith Mwai, policy analyst at Development Reimagined, an Africa-focussed consultancy.
“For African leaders, this tour is an opportunity to demand that China’s ‘small yet beautiful’ projects specifically target our industrial gaps, turning African raw materials into finished products on African soil, rather than just facilitating their exit,” she added.
On his start-of-year trip in 2025, Wang visited Namibia, the Republic of Congo, Chad and Nigeria.
His visit to Somalia will be the first by a Chinese foreign minister since the 1980s and is expected to provide Mogadishu with a diplomatic boost after Israel became the first country to formally recognize the breakaway Republic of Somaliland, a northern region that declared itself independent in 1991.
Beijing, which reiterated its support for Somalia after the Israeli announcement in December, is keen to reinforce its influence around the Gulf of Aden, the entrance to the Red Sea and a vital corridor for Chinese trade transiting the Suez Canal to Europe.
Further south, Tanzania is central to Beijing’s plan to secure access to Africa’s vast copper deposits. Chinese firms are refurbishing the Tazara Railway that runs through the country into Zambia. Li Qiang made a landmark trip to Zambia in November, the first visit by a Chinese premier in 28 years.
The railway is widely seen as a counterweight to the US and European Union-backed Lobito Corridor, which connects Zambia to Atlantic ports via Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
By visiting the southern African kingdom of Lesotho, Wang aims to highlight Beijing’s push to position itself as a champion of free trade. Last year, China offered tariff-free market access to its $19 trillion economy for the world’s poorest nations, fulfilling a pledge by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 2024 China-Africa Cooperation summit in Beijing.
Lesotho, one of the world’s poorest nations with a gross domestic product of just over $2 billion, was among the countries hardest hit by US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs last year, facing duties of up to 50 percent on its exports to the United States.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to Ethiopia, Africa’s fastest-growing large economy; Somalia, a Horn of Africa state offering access to key global shipping lanes; Tanzania, a logistics hub linking minerals-rich central Africa to the Indian Ocean; and Lesotho, a small southern African economy squeezed by US trade measures. His trip this year runs until January 12.
Beijing aims to highlight countries it views as model partners of President Xi Jinping’s flagship “Belt and Road” infrastructure program and to expand export markets, particularly in young, increasingly affluent economies such as Ethiopia, where the IMF forecasts growth of 7.2 percent this year.
China, the world’s largest bilateral lender, faces growing competition from the European Union to finance African infrastructure, as countries hit by pandemic-era debt strains now seek investment over loans.
“The real litmus test for 2026 isn’t just the arrival of Chinese investment, but the ‘Africanization’ of that investment. As Wang Yi visits hubs like Ethiopia and Tanzania, the conversation must move beyond just building roads to building factories,” said Judith Mwai, policy analyst at Development Reimagined, an Africa-focussed consultancy.
“For African leaders, this tour is an opportunity to demand that China’s ‘small yet beautiful’ projects specifically target our industrial gaps, turning African raw materials into finished products on African soil, rather than just facilitating their exit,” she added.
On his start-of-year trip in 2025, Wang visited Namibia, the Republic of Congo, Chad and Nigeria.
His visit to Somalia will be the first by a Chinese foreign minister since the 1980s and is expected to provide Mogadishu with a diplomatic boost after Israel became the first country to formally recognize the breakaway Republic of Somaliland, a northern region that declared itself independent in 1991.
Beijing, which reiterated its support for Somalia after the Israeli announcement in December, is keen to reinforce its influence around the Gulf of Aden, the entrance to the Red Sea and a vital corridor for Chinese trade transiting the Suez Canal to Europe.
Further south, Tanzania is central to Beijing’s plan to secure access to Africa’s vast copper deposits. Chinese firms are refurbishing the Tazara Railway that runs through the country into Zambia. Li Qiang made a landmark trip to Zambia in November, the first visit by a Chinese premier in 28 years.
The railway is widely seen as a counterweight to the US and European Union-backed Lobito Corridor, which connects Zambia to Atlantic ports via Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
By visiting the southern African kingdom of Lesotho, Wang aims to highlight Beijing’s push to position itself as a champion of free trade. Last year, China offered tariff-free market access to its $19 trillion economy for the world’s poorest nations, fulfilling a pledge by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 2024 China-Africa Cooperation summit in Beijing.
Lesotho, one of the world’s poorest nations with a gross domestic product of just over $2 billion, was among the countries hardest hit by US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs last year, facing duties of up to 50 percent on its exports to the United States.
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