No, it isn't, by any metric. I personally know people who learned C in a week. I learned all basics of the language in 2 weeks as a teenager, with nothing but K&R as learning materials.
If you disagree, point out by which metrics you consider Rust to be easier to learn than C, and we can have a discussion.
> Rust is hard for older programmers because it's hard to FORGET old habits from other languages, which allowed too much.
No it isn't. First, both newcomers and experienced programmers consider Rust a more complicated language than most of its contemporaries, and if anything a solif experience in multiple programming languages makes it easier to learn the advanced concepts Rust relies on.
Better by what metric?
> more syntax sugar
More features and syntactic concepts don't make a language easier to learn.
Rust is hard for older programmers because it's hard to FORGET old habits from other languages, which allowed too much.