Trump says he’ll beef up US arsenal
US President Donald Trump promised a massive military buildup and put a staunchly nationalistic stamp on Republican politics in a fiery address to supporters this week.
“The era of empty talk is over. It’s over. Now is the time for action,” Trump told battalions of conservatives gathered for an annual meeting just outside the US capital on Friday.
In wide-ranging remarks Trump painted immigrants as criminals, again attacked the media as the “enemy of the people” and promised one of the “greatest military buildups in American history”.
“Nobody’s going to mess with us, folks. Nobody,” he said.
He said he wanted to see a world where nobody had nuVladimir clear weapons, but until then the US should be “at the top of the pack”.
His words risk a return to an arms race that ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and are in keeping with a manifesto built on the idea that the US is not the global force it once was.
He returned to the theme this weekend during a speech to a conservative conference in which he promised to accelerate spending on the country’s military might.
The US has 6 800 nuclear weapons compared with a Russian arsenal of 7 000, according to the independent Arms Control Association.
Both the US and Russia — where Russian President Putin has also promised to strengthen his arsenal — are committed to reducing the number of deployable warheads under the terms of the New Start deal signed in 2011.
It allows both countries to have a maximum of 800 deployed and non-deployed ballistic missile launchers and nuclear-equipped bombers. It limits the number of deployed warheads to 1 550.
“Offensive. Defensive. Everything. Bigger and better and stronger than ever before. And hopefully we’ll never have to use it,” he added. The hawkish message was met with euphoric chants of “USA, USA” by the audience.
In his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump pulled the rope decisively to the nationalistic far right.
“There is no such thing as a global anthem, a global currency, or a global flag,” he said.
“This is the United States of America that I’m representing.”
This was also a victory lap. Just a year ago Trump dropped out of the same conference amid controversy over his appearance.
With his administration now mired in multiple missteps and strong disapproval ratings, Trump went on the offensive.
He painted Sweden, Germany and France as blighted by jihadist violence, as he sought to defend his own controversial crackdown on immigrants.
“We fully understand that national security begins with border security,” he said.
“Let me state this as clearly as I can: we are going to keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country.” — AFP
Offensive. Defensive. Everything. Bigger and better