This may be the bluntest denunciation of Pakistan by a sitting US President but when you consider the style of Donald Trump, you can very well expect such an onslaught.
“We give Pakistan $1.3 billion a year . … [bin Laden] lived in Pakistan, we’re supporting Pakistan, we’re giving them $1.3 billion a year — which we don’t give them any more, by the way. I ended it because they don’t do anything for us, they don’t do a damn thing for us,” Trump was quoted as saying.
The US President was in conversation with Fox News Anchor Chris Wallace during an interview which aired on the American news channel on Sunday.
However, Trump clearly conveyed that Pakistan has done little, in spite of accepting aid (in billions of dollars) from US, to assist it in its ‘War on Terror’ among other things. He slammed Pakistan as he blamed it of having sheltered Osama Bin Laden.
USA’s frustration with Pakistan has been expressed publicly by Trump administration many times. In Washington’s political circles, Pakistan is widely seen as a major factor behind the Afghanistan war going downhill in the last two decades.
Pakistan’s claim of ‘being a victim of terrorism’ took a worldwide beating after Al Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden was found to be living in a fortified compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan.
The compound was demolished by US Naval Special Warfare Development Group forces, in a daring helicopter raid in 2011. Laden was killed in the operation.
Trump, while announcing his Afghanistan and South Asia policy in August last year, had hit out at Pakistan for providing safe havens to “agents of chaos” that kill Americans in Afghanistan and warned Islamabad that it has “much to lose” by harbouring terrorists.
In September, the Trump administration cancelled USD 300 million in military aid to Islamabad for not doing enough against terror groups active on its soil.