Trump’s Twitter Attack On Pakistan Is Met With Both Anger And Support In South Asia
In one of his first tweets of the new year, U.S. President Donald Trump accused Pakistan of deceiving the United States and harboring terrorists while accepting billions of dollars in foreign aid, an equation that would no longer be tolerated.
Along with the tweet came reports that the U.S. is likely to withhold more than $250 million in aid that it delayed sending to Islamabad in August, due to Pakistan’s perceived failure to crack down more effectively on terror groups.
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Trump also criticized Pakistan for allegedly harboring former Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, who is credited as the mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S.
The president said that Bin Laden was living “beautifully” in Pakistan while “everybody knew he was there,” adding that the U.S. formerly gave the country “$1.3 billion per year.”
Trump stressed that the U.S. does not give more money to the country, “by the way. I ended it.” He then said that Pakistan wasn’t doing “a damn thing for us.”
Prime Minister Imran Khan hit back in a Monday tweet. He said that he wanted to put the record straight in regards to his country’s relationship with Washington following Trump’s “tirade.”
