 "US will help countries, but not wealthy ones like Japan, S Korea: Trump")
The US wants to help other countries but not the wealthy ones such as Japan and South Korea where America is taking care of their militaries, president Donald Trump has said.
Addressing a rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday, Trump said that the US has been taking care of the military of the wealthy countries but has not been paid back or reimbursed for a tiny fraction.
"We're going to help other countries. But we can't have wealthy, wealthy countries where we take care of their military and we're not reimbursed, or we're reimbursed for a tiny fraction. Can't have that. These are wealthy countries," Trump told his supporters during the rally.
Trump said that he has reached out the country heads of such nation and raised the issue with them.
"I've gone to some of them. I don't know if I should give you names. Who cares? There are plenty of them," he said and then named Japan and South Korea.
Referring to a conversation with the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump said he has asked the same to Japan.
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"Japan is an immensely wealthy nation. They send millions and millions of cars to the United States, and they also build them in the United States. I like them better, by the way. I think they're much nicer," he said.
"But I said to Prime Minister Abe, I said, look, we're taking care of your military. We help you a lot with North Korea. They're not sending missiles over Japan. I did that. You're only paying for a percentage of your military. We're doing the rest. You've got to really help us out. It's not fair," he said.
"And he (Abe) looked at me, and he didn't say anything. I said, has anyone ever asked you to do this before? He goes, no," he said amidst laughter.
Trump said that similar was the case with South Korea and asked why should the US be paying USD 1 billion for the missile system to defend them.
"We have the best people in the world, the best trained -- we have a missile system that costs USD 1 billion. We shoot the missiles down. That's great. South Korea's very wealthy They make your Samsung, your LG, they make your ships, they make everything -- they're making a fortune because of us," Trump said.
Trump said that the US has 32,000 soldiers over South Korea that they don't pay for.
"They've got to pay," he said.