"
- President Trump claimed on Friday that
Saudi Arabia has ‘already deposited
$1billion in the bank’ so that the United
States would continue to station troops in
the desert kingdom.
‘Saudi Arabia is paying us for [our
troops],’ Trump told Fox News host Laura
Ingraham.
‘We have a very good relationship with Saudi
Arabia. I said, "listen, you’re a very rich
country. You want more troops? I’m going to
send them to you, but you’ve got to pay us."
'They’re paying us. They’ve already
deposited $1 billion in the bank.’
It is unclear what
payment Trump was referring to. DailyMail.com has
reached out to the White House for comment.
Calls to the Pentagon
went unanswered on Sunday.
House Rep. Justin
Amash, the Michigan congressman who left the
Republican Party after he came out in opposition to
Trump, slammed the president on Saturday in response
to his comments on Fox News.
‘He sells troops,’ the
independent Amash tweeted.
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Trump told Ingraham on
Friday that countries hosting American bases are
paying the U.S. treasury, though these claims are
not verified.
‘We are going to help
them, but these rich countries have to pay for it,’
Trump said.
‘South Korea gave us
$500 million… I said, “You gotta help us along. We
have 32,000 soldiers in South Korea protecting you
from North Korea. You’ve gotta pay”.’
Amash has accused
Trump of reneging on his campaign pledge to get
American soldiers out of the Middle East.
Last week, Trump
ordered the killing of Qassem Soleimani, a top
Iranian general who died in a U.S. drone attack in
Baghdad.
Iran responded with
ballistic missiles at an Iraqi air base housing U.S.
soldiers. There were no injuries.
In response to the
escalating tensions with Iran, the Trump
administration has deployed thousands of additional
soldiers to the region.
‘There are people who
support the president, who believe things he says,
but it’s pretty clear he’s not bringing home the
troops,’ Amash told NBC News back in October.
‘He’s just moving them
to other parts of the Middle East.’
Amash added: ‘He’s
moving troops back into Iraq, he’s moving other
troops into Saudi Arabia and using our forces almost
as mercenaries, paid mercenaries who are going to
come in, as long as Saudi Arabia pays us some money,
it’s good to go.’
In October, Saudi
Arabia’s king and crown prince approved the
deployment of additional U.S. troops and equipment,
after an attack the previous month on the kingdom’s
oil facilities.
The United States
announced a deployment of about 3,000 troops to the
Gulf state, including fighter squadrons, an air
expeditionary wing and air defense personnel, amid
heightened tensions with Saudi’s arch-rival Iran.
Trump said the Saudis
had agreed to pay for the deployment.
Earlier this month,
the U.S. sent nearly 3,000 additional troops to the
Middle East from the 82nd Airborne Division as a
precaution amid rising threats to American forces in
the region.
The U.S. has already
dispatched about 14,000 additional troops to the
Middle East since May.
