US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that US forces would pull out of Syria “very soon” and lamented what he said was Washington’s waste of $7 trillion in Middle East wars.
In a populist address to industrial workers in Ohio, Trump said US forces were close to securing all of the territories that Daesh, the terror group once claimed.
“We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now,” he promised, to applause.
Trump did not say who the others were who might take care of Syria, but Russia and Iran have sizeable forces in the country to support Bashar al Assad’s regime.
“Very soon – very soon we’re coming out. We’re going to have 100 percent of the caliphate, as they call it – sometimes referred to as ‘land’ – taking it all back quickly, quickly,” he said.
“But we’re going to be coming out of there real soon. Going to get back to our country, where we belong, where we want to be.”
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert was later asked at a briefing if she was aware of any decision for the US to pull out of Syria.
She responded, “I am not, no. No.”
