In June, President Trump announced the end of military exercises with South Korea, saying they were “provocative,” and said he hoped at some point to withdraw all 28,500 US troops from South Korea. This was just three months after threatening to withdraw troops from South Korea over a trade dispute.
Over the weekend, however, President Trump told interviewers that he has absolutely no plans to ever withdraw US troops from South Korea.
He did say it was “very expensive” to keep troops there, which is in
keeping with Trump’s demands for South Korea to pay even more for the
troops.
All the other talk of withdrawing troops from South Korea? That never
happened, according to Trump. He’s insisting that not only are there no
plans, but that he’s “never even discussed removing them,” despite all the times he publicly discussed removing them.
While this is flagrantly untrue, it is not uncommon for the president to
insist that his current policy, however new, has always been his
intention, and that well documented reports to the contrary simply never
happened.
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What on Earth has Trump been drinking lately? First, he announced the end of joint military exercises, saying, “They’d be provocative”, and said he hoped at some point to withdraw all 28,500 US troops from South Korea.
Now, just in a recent interview, Trump said that he absolutely has no plans of ever withdrawing US troops from South Korea. I bet South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-In was both shocked and angered by Trump’s complete about-face, and I don’t blame him one bit. He wanted all US troops out soon after he was inaugurated.
I wouldn’t be surprised if North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-Un is just as shocked and angered at Trump’s complete about-face as well. Somebody had better take away that toxic Kool-Aid from him before he starts a world-ending 3rd World War. He’s more and more similar to Bonkers Bolton. and that’s a very bad sign.
“At some point” is not the same as currently having a concrete plan to withdraw American Troops. He has to be somewhat careful of the pack of hyenas (neocon warmongers/liberal interventionsts, and their media mouthpieces) who would go in for the kill if he made a current announcement of a plan to withdraw all US troops before NK de-nuclearizes
Or especially, Republicans
The “end of exercises” was a slick move by the Koreans to give trump an entry point. The lions share of those exercises are amphibious landings of South Korean troops. The US was told, those troops are not participating, so, no exercises were possible, tho they made a point of not making that public, and embarrassing their US allies. Far from “withdrawal” trump has enflamed the situation by vastly increasing nuclear first strike capability in Guam.
That’s what you get when you hire someone robustly unqualified for a job. Garbage in, garbage out.
Just once I’d like Trump to talk about peace as the reason he wants to bring the troops home from anywhere. It’s always about the money. Same goes for NATO, it’s not about it being obsolete but about how much other member nations contribute.
True. His campaign was about winning wars, not peace.
I’m sure you’d like him to, but he’s not a man of peace. He’s a man of winning by any means necessary, and rubbing his victory in the losing party’s face like the grade school bully he is.
Gee, Trump pulls yet another about face, claiming that he never said what he’s on record saying. I guess reality is fake news.