![]() ![]() ![]() “So we have to put them in certain areas.” “You’ve got to be pretty careful with the tanks because the roads have a tendency not to like to carry heavy tanks,” Trump said, acknowledging the damage that such heavy vehicles could do to Washington’s transportation network. The M4 Sherman was used by the United States during World War II and the Korean War, and is no longer in active service. The M1 Abrams tank was used during the Gulf War and is still in use by the military. Trump said that “brand-new Abrams tanks” and “brand-new Sherman tanks” would be on display Thursday. It was not clear how much the use of the military would cost July 4. They say the United States, which has the world’s most powerful military and spends more on defense than the seven next largest military spenders combined - China, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Russia, Britain and Germany - does not need to broadcast its strength.īut Trump believes that the inclusion of tanks and other weapons in the July 4 celebration, which was first reported by The Washington Post, would help to transform the capital city’s annual event into the kind of military celebration he has long wanted.Īfter watching the Bastille Day parade in 2017 in Paris, Trump said that “we may do something like that on July 4 in Washington down Pennsylvania Avenue.” He later raised the idea of a military parade on Veterans Day but abandoned it in the face of public opposition from city officials, private dissent from the Pentagon and a price tag of more than $90 million. Pentagon officials have long been reluctant to parade tanks, missiles and other weapons through the nation’s capital like the authoritarian leaders of North Korea and China. Top military officials have expressed deep concern about letting the armed forces be used by the president to advance a political agenda and earlier resisted his efforts for a military parade on Veterans Day. The president’s decision also reflects the divide between Trump and the forces at his command. The City Council for the District of Columbia, which was not happy with Trump’s decision, posted on Twitter that “we have said it before, and we’ll say it again: Tanks, but no tanks.” ![]() Trump’s Fourth of July homage to the military sets up a cultural clash between the Republican president and a mostly Democratic city that has for decades celebrated America’s independence with almost no public participation by presidents of either party. ![]()
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