US President Donald Trump has renewed his call for the Taliban to return billions of dollars worth of American military equipment left behind in Afghanistan when US troops left the country in 2021. Emphasising that he was "angry" the American Presidnet lamented that a "lot of" equipment, from the military resources he built during his first term in office, was left behind in Afghanistan and has fallen in the Taliban's hands.
The US President made these remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland on Saturday. However, it wasn't his concerns, but the theatrical emphasis on the word "angry" that caught people's attention.
A video of the incident was widely shared on social media, where Trump can be seen making unusual vocal inflexions while pronouncing the word "angry" to express his frustration.
"We have a great, you know, I rebuilt our entire military in the first term," he said.
"We left a lot of it, although a lot of it, but very small, relatively, in Afghanistan. The Taliban has it. You know, they have their parade every year where they take our military vehicles and run them up some little street, and like it's their form of a military parade, and it makes me angry when I see that. Angry. When I see that, I get angry," he added.
Trump noted that the United States continues to provide significant financial assistance to Afghanistan, and suggested that aid should be tied to the return of American military equipment now in Taliban possession.
"You know, we give them-I don't think anyone knows this-we give Afghanistan about two or two and a half billion dollars a year. Do you know that? For aid, aid. We need aid ourselves. I want to look at it, but if we're going to give them money, it's okay. But I want them to give us back our military equipment that they have," he said.
The US withdrawal from Afghanistan, ordered by President Joe Biden, was completed on August 30, 2021, ending America's longest war after nearly 20 years of military involvement. While much of the military equipment left behind was disabled or destroyed, some vehicles and weapons reportedly fell into Taliban hands.
Trump has frequently criticized the withdrawal, calling it "disastrous". He had blamed the Biden administration for what he described as a poorly executed exit.
