President Donald Trump ripped into diversity and inclusion policies in the United States, knocked Nato and took credit for building up the military on Saturday in a campaign-style commencement speech at the prestigious West Point Military Academy in New York.<\/p>\n
Trump, wearing a suit and his signature red \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d cap, mixed advice to \u201cwork hard\u201d with a list of his top grievances about cultural and political issues while speaking to a stadium filled with cadets, family members and a largely supportive crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe job of the US Armed Forces is not to host drag shows, to transform foreign cultures,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThe military\u2019s job is to dominate any foe and annihilate any threat to America, anywhere, anytime, in any place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since coming into office for the second time in January, Trump has rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes in the military and throughout the government as part of a larger effort to rescind policies enacted by his predecessor, Joe Biden.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve liberated our troops from divisive and demeaning political trainings,\u201d Trump told the 1,002 cadets graduating from the academy. \u201cThere will be no more critical race theory or transgender for everybody forced onto our brave men and women in uniform, or on anybody else for that matter in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has been a strong supporter of the military even as he has put his own stamp on it, as he has on other branches of government. In February, he fired the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General CQ Brown and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of military leadership.<\/p>\n
It was the second time Trump addressed graduates of the academy on the Hudson River following his appearance in 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, when cadets sat further apart and wore masks to prevent the spread of the virus.<\/p>\n
West Point aims to educate the next generation of army leaders for a military that is meant to be apolitical and is sworn to defend the US Constitution.<\/p>\n
In a speech full of partisan rhetoric on Saturday, Trump took credit for rebuilding the Army and referenced his tariff-fueled trade war while repeating his longstanding criticism of Nato allies for not spending more on defence.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been ripped off by every nation in the world on trade. We\u2019ve been ripped off at the Nato level,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been ripped off like no country has ever been ripped off, but they don\u2019t rip us off anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
The president will preside over the army\u2019s celebration of its 250th anniversary on June 14 with a parade on one of Washington\u2019s main thoroughfares. The anniversary coincides with Trump\u2019s own birthday.<\/p>\n
This week, Trump spoke about a signature piece of his military vision, announcing he had selected a design for the $175 billion Golden Dome missile defence shield and named a Space Force general to head the programme aimed at blocking threats from China and Russia. Trump said on Saturday that the shield would protect West Point.<\/p>\n
Experts have said the Golden Dome could provoke other states to launch similar systems or develop more advanced weapons to evade the missile shield, escalating an arms race in space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Donald Trump ripped into diversity and inclusion policies in the United States, knocked Nato and took credit for building up the military on Saturday in a campaign-style commencement speech at the prestigious West Point Military Academy in New York. Trump, wearing a suit and his signature red \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d cap, mixed advice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9433,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9431\/revisions\/9433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}