WASHINGTON: United States President Donald Trump on Sunday (local time) claimed that China will be the biggest winner of the USD 740 million defense bill and vowed to veto it.
Taking to Twitter, Trump said, “THE BIGGEST WINNER OF OUR NEW DEFENSE BILL IS CHINA!. I WILL VETO!”
While the US President did not elaborate much on his specific concern over China, Rhode Island’s Senator Jack Reed said in a tweet, “President Trump clearly has not read the bill, nor does he understand what is in it. There are several bipartisan provisions in here that get tougher on China than the Trump Administration has ever been.”
According to a report by The Washington Post, “The annual defense bill establishes a programme to strengthen the United States’ posture and alliances in the Indo-Pacific region and funding for additional attack submarines that senior Pentagon officials have said are vital for countering China’s powerful maritime forces. The legislation also creates a new director of cybersecurity position to coordinate such activities government-wide, and establishes a plan to make the Defense Department less dependent on Chinese manufacturing, from microelectronics to face masks.”
The flagship China-focused programme is the “new Pacific Deterrence Initiative” aiming to establish a regionwide approach to counter China “in its immediate area of influence”. The program’s inspiration comes from the European Deterrence Initiative, launched in 2014 to bolster the presence of US forces to help defend North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), allies against Russian aggression, said The Washington Post.
According to a Sputnik report, the National Defense Authorisation Act (NDAA), which includes provisions to sanction the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and Turkey for its acquisition of Russian-made S-400 air defense systems, passed the House of Representatives by a 335-78 margin on Tuesday.
On December 11, the Senate had voted 84-13 in favour of the bill, enough to override Trump’s veto. The bill also includes a provision requiring the names of Confederate soldiers and leaders to be stripped from American military bases. The President has voiced his disapproval of the NDAA because it fails to include a repeal of Section 230, a law that protects internet companies from being liable for third-party posts, said Sputnik.
Trump had been at war with the social media for the past several months during the Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd, a black man from Minneapolis. President Trump had earlier threatened to veto the bill if it requires the Defence Department to remove Confederate names from military bases.
“Section 2829 is part of a sustained effort to erase from the history of the Nation those who do not meet an ever-shifting standard of conduct,” said a White House statement, chagrining a ‘left-wing cultural revolution’. (ANI)
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