Democratic U.S. Senator from Illinois Tammy Duckworth has co-sponsored an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act to put a check on the President pulling troops from South Korea.
Following President Donald Trump’s summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un earlier this week, the President said he would be in favor of removing the nearly 30,000 troops stationed in the Korean Penisula.
He added however that the withdrawal “not a part of the equation now.”
Duckworth, a combat veteran in Iraq says that “troops are not bargaining chips to be offered up in an off-handed manner.”
The amendment that she has introduced alongside Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut would prohibit the President from troop reductions on the Korean Penisula unless the U.S. Secretary of Defense certifies that it’s in U.S. national interest.
Duckworth says that Kim regime has done nothing to demonstrate that the threat they pose has “lessened”.
She continues that any withdrawal must be tied to “concrete and verifiable changes in the DPRK’s behavior” as well as “changing security dynamics” throughout the region.
