Trump signs $716 billion US military budget
Donald Trump signed a $716 billion US military budget. The budget increases the salaries of the armed forces and leads to the modernization of the US military's air, naval and missile defense fleets.
"Luckily, we're going to be so powerful that we never have to use it," Donald Trump said on August 12 during the signing of the budget at a military base in New York. "But if we do, nobody has a chance."
The official name of this budget is the "John S. McCain National Defense Authorization."
The budget announced by the President of the United States, which had already been approved by the Senate, increases US defense spending and, as the Associated Press reported, spends billions of dollars on military construction, including complexes and housing for military members and their families.
According to Reuters, the budget includes $10 billion to expand the air defense capabilities of the US Missile Defense Agency, emphasizing the need to counter attacks from Iran and North Korea.
The “Defense Authorization Act” allocates nearly $70 billion for what it calls “contingencies for overseas operations.” The bill would increase the pay of members of the armed forces by 2.6 percent and allocate $7.6 billion to purchase 77 advanced F-35 fighter jets.
According to Reuters, the budget calls on the US Secretary of Defense to investigate whether the Turkish government's use of the Russian S-400 air defense system compromises the security of some US-made weapons, such as the F-35.
The US Senate passed a bill at the end of June that would have banned the sale of F-35 jets to Turkey unless Ankara renounced its purchase of the S-400 missile defense system from Russia.
While some US lawmakers had wanted to use the funds to impose tougher sanctions on Chinese telecom company ZTE for circumventing sanctions on Iran and North Korea, the final bill is less stringent, according to the Associated Press and Reuters.
ZTE was fined $1 billion for violating sanctions on Iran and North Korea, in addition to sanctions, and was on the verge of being shut down, but with Mr. Trump's intervention, the sanctions against it were lifted.
The US intelligence community has expressed concern about “malign activities” by Chinese state-owned telecommunications companies. Trump has warned that sanctions will put many people out of work in China.
On the other hand, Reuters reported that the new budget increases the power of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which investigates foreign investments and potential threats to US national security; this section appears to be specifically targeting China.
Source: Radio Farda
