Trump has signed a record defense budget: where the money will go

US President Donald Trump has signed up a defense budget for 2019 for the year, totaling 717 billion dollars. The law provides, in particular, for an increase in the monetary allowance of servicemen and measures to contain Russia.

Photo: facebook.com/WhiteHouse

The budget signing ceremony took place at the Fort Dram military base in New York. In his speech to the military, Trump promised not only to increase the number of recruits in all units of the US Army, but also to replace aging tanks, airplanes, ships and helicopters with more modern models.

“I hope we will be so strong that we will never have to use it [the new weapons]. But if we have to do this, then no one will have any chance,” Trump emphasized.

The bill was named after Republican Senator John McCain, but Trump never mentioned his name in his speech, which many journalists and politicians noticed.

McCain himself wrote on Twitter that he was proud that the law was finally signed, and at the same time embarrassed that the document received his name.

with the BBC chose the key provisions and figures of the new defense budget, which many experts already call the largest in the history of the country.

The document includes three main items of expenditure:

1. $616,9 billion - Pentagon base budget
2. $69 billion - military operations abroad
3. $21,9 billion - nuclear weapons development program

One of the main points of the new budget is an increase in the pay of military personnel by 2,6% from January next year. This increase in wages was the largest in the last nine years. In addition, the staff of the US armed forces is expected to increase by more than 15 thousand people.

Ships, aircraft and tanks

A significant part of the Pentagon’s budget provides for the purchase, modernization and construction of military equipment. Including planned to spend:

• $24,1 billion for the construction of 13 new warships
• $7,6 billion for the purchase of 77 fifth-generation F-35 fighters
• $452 million for the purchase of six AH-64E Apache attack helicopters for the US National Guard
• $225 million for the purchase of Stryker A1 armored fighting vehicles and the modernization of a number of older armored fighting vehicles and tanks

The law also provides for a number of restrictions on the export of military equipment. For example, the document states that the United States prohibits the supply of F-35 fighters to Turkey due to the Pentagon’s concern over the possible Ankara deal with Moscow to purchase C-400 anti-aircraft missile systems.

Фото: Depositphotos

In particular, the US administration and its contractors are prohibited from doing business with Chinese companies ZTE Corporation and Huawei Technologies, which, as stated in the law, are a threat to US national security. Pentagon funds for the implementation of Chinese language programs in American universities are also limited.

Measures in relation to Russia are as follows:

• Freeze cooperation within the framework of the Open Skies Treaty, which allowed Russian and American military aircraft to conduct observation flights over the territory of both countries;
• the expansion of restrictions in the field of military cooperation between Russia and the United States;
• strengthening the defense potential of US partners in Europe to, if necessary, deter Russian aggression;
• tracking and deterring cyber attacks from Russia, as well as from China, the DPRK and Iran.

"Unprecedented scale"

The Russian authorities have already announced their negative reaction to the new US defense budget. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Moscow is particularly concerned about the overall level of spending.

“About $720 billion is an unprecedented scale of spending for military purposes. This in itself is an alarming phenomenon,” RIA Novosti quoted Ryabkov as saying.

Also, in his opinion, the document contains an attempt to “impose a solution to known problems in the field of arms control.”

A spokesman for the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, said that Russia's positioning in the US as a threat is groundless, since the US defense budget has always been significantly higher than the Russian one.

The Chinese authorities also criticized the document, calling it interference in the internal affairs of the country.

As noted in a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the restrictions on China mentioned in the law are “permeated with Cold War-era thinking” and “exaggerate the Chinese-American confrontation.”

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