On the recordApril 13, 2021
The United States will begin our final withdrawal -- begin it on May 1 of this year. We`ll not conduct a hasty rush to the exit. We`ll do it -- we`ll do it responsibly, deliberately and safely. I know there are many who will insist that diplomacy cannot exist without a robust U.S. military presence to stand as leverage. We gave that argument a decade. It`s never proved effective, not when we had 98,000 troops in Afghanistan and not when we were down to a few thousand. Our diplomacy does not hinge on having boots in harm`s way, U.S. boots on the ground. We have to change that thinking.
