<h1>Ex-national security adviser says president's tariffs and policy moves pushed South Asian democracy toward rival and partner, aggravating tensions</h1> A former US national security adviser criticized the US president's recent tariff and foreign-policy moves as having 'shredded' decades of Western efforts to pull a major South Asian democracy away from a longstanding security partner and to warn it about a regional rival, arguing those policies - including heavy tariffs and threatened secondary duties on buyers of a sanctioned country's energy - have pushed it closer to that partner and to the rival. The adviser also said the president's claims of mediating a ceasefire between the South Asian rivals aggravated tensions and that repairing the damage would require significant effort.