President Donald Trump has stopped providing “billion dollars” in military aid to Pakistan as it harbours terrorists who were trying to kill American soldiers, said Indian-American Republican politician Nikki Haley on Saturday. Speaking during an event organised by the Indian Voices for Trump in the battleground state of Philadelphia, Haley praised Trump’s foreign policies.
The two-term governor of South Carolina, Haley was the first Cabinet-ranking Indian-American in any presidential administration. She is now campaigning for Trump ahead of the US election. “We were giving a billion dollars in military aid to Pakistan, who was turning around harbouring terrorists, that are trying to kill our American soldiers. We do not give that billion dollars,” the former US envoy to the United Nations said.
“Now, there’s actually a method that the President using, which looks, we should not just use a UN vote to decide who to get funding, but it should be one of the things we look at. And we need to be smart about how we do foreign policy,” she added.
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The US officials, time and again, have accused Pakistan of sponsoring terrorism. In 2018, Trump administration suspended USD 300 million in funding to Islamabad over what it calls the government’s failure to take action against terrorists.
“The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies and deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!” Trump had tweeted in January 2018.
On June 24, the US had released its Congressional-mandated 2019 Country Reports on Terrorism, in which it accused Pakistan of remaining a “safe harbour” for regional terrorist groups. India has also repeatedly accused Pakistan of sponsoring terrorism.
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