At a cabinet meeting on Feb. 12, President Trump said the U.S. spends ‘$5 billion worth of protection’ for South Korea. (The Washington Post)
“South Korea — we defend them and lose a tremendous amount of money. Billions of dollars a year defending them. And working with Secretary Pompeo and John Bolton, they agreed to pay, yesterday, $500 million more toward their defense. Five hundred million, with a couple of phone calls. I said, ‘Why didn’t you do this before?’ They said, ‘Nobody asked.’ … But South Korea is costing us $5 billion a year. And they pay — they were paying about $500 million for $5 billion worth of protection. And we have to do better than that. So they’ve agreed to pay $500 million more.”
— President Trump, in a Cabinet meeting, Feb. 12, 2019
“You saw South Korea, they were paying us $500 million a year. I say, ‘You got to do more. You got to give more.’ Anyway, now they’re up to almost $900 million. That was, like, two phone calls.” Continue reading “President Trump’s imaginary numbers on military aid to South Korea”