SAN FRANCISCO, June 22, (THEWILL) – A former United States National Security Adviser (NSA) has revealed that U.S President Donald Trump at some point wanted the $1.5bn aid given to Nigeria annually to be stopped.
The former NSA, John Bolton, stated this in his highly anticipated book titled, ‘In the Room Where It Happened’ where he also revealed that Trump wanted funding for military operations in Afghanistan and Syria be cut.
Bolton, who left Trump’s administration last year, said the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, had confirmed to Trump that indeed, Nigeria was receiving a lot of money from the US annually.
Trump, however, lamented that despite all the money Nigeria was receiving from the US, Nigeria was still refusing to buy agricultural produce from America.
Bolton further claimed that Trump argued that the US should cut funding to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, but argued that funds should be released for the construction of a wall along the US-Mexico border.
He wrote, “Following more chatter, Patrick Shanahan (then US Defence Secretary) turned to the cost reductions that maintaining the counter-terrorism capability would entail. But before he got too far, Trump broke in to complain about Congress’ refusal to fund the Mexico border wall.
“Then he was off, ‘Why can’t we just get out of Syria and Afghanistan? I never should have agreed to the other two hundred (in Syria), and it’s really 400 anyway…Then after literally 45 seconds back on Afghanistan, Trump asked, Why are we in Africa?’
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“He soon made it clear he wanted out of Africa altogether, expounding for some time on our $22 trillion national debt, followed by the problems of our balance-of-trade deficits, followed by complaining, again, about how Nigeria received $1.5bn annually in foreign aid, as he said the President of Nigeria had confirmed to him in an earlier visit, even though they wouldn’t buy US farm products.”
Botton left the Trump administration in September 2019 after disagreeing strongly with the President over how to handle major challenges like Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan.
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