Guam Governor Supports President Trump’s Decision to Stop Bomber Flights from Guam
|A fan of President Trump’s decision to stop joint wargames against North Korea is Guam Governor Eddie Calvo:
Gov. Eddie Calvo met with President Donald Trump as the president made a pit stop at Andersen Air Force Base early Wednesday morning.
Trump was on his return trip from Singapore after a historic summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. (……)
“The war games are very expensive. We pay for a big majority of them. We fly in bombers from Guam,” Trump said after meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jung Un.
“I said — when I first started, I said, ‘Where do the bombers come from?’ ‘Guam. Nearby.’ I said, ‘Oh, great, nearby. Where’s nearby?’ ‘Six and a half hours.’ Six and a half hours — that’s a long time for these big massive planes to be flying to South Korea to practice and then drop bombs all over the place, and then go back to Guam. I know a lot about airplanes; it’s very expensive. And I didn’t like it.”
Calvo said he supports Trump’s decision to halt bomber flights from Andersen. Calvo said the exercises were “threatening,” and put Guam in North Korea’s crosshairs. [Guam PDN]
You can read more at the link, but Governor Calvo as was reported to have told Trump that the people of Guam breathed a “big sigh of relief” after the summit since the island has been repeatedly threatened over the years by North Korea for missile attacks.
Like Guamanians ever batted an eyelash at Fatty and his threats.
I can see the spin machinery at work to have the bomber presence at Andersen declared a nuclear threat to North Korea and becoming a reciprocal condition for North Korea’s de-nuclearizing.
Andersen has been THE Pacific strategic bomber base since World War II yet it seems forces are at work to take this rook off the board.
What did Trump and Kim discuss and bargain about in that private meeting with only translators and no records kept?
There is a toothy grin of the invisible Cheshire Cat called China in the background.
He prefers being called Emperor Xi.
@JoeC, I would be very surprised if the continuous bomber presence on Guam is removed. The bombers there regularly conduct security operations in the region outside of the North Korean threat. Also Naval Base Guam is host to submarines which can deliver nukes as well if required.
If the continuous bomber presence or submarine are removed from Guam it would be a big win for the Chinese though I would be very surprised to see it happen since that is a sovereign US territory that the Trump administration would be dropping the defenses for. Especially during a time of aggressive Chinese expansionism.