Afghanistan withdrawal
Trump mentioned Tuesday evening that the US left around $85 billion worth of military equipment in Afghanistan, after its military withdrawal in 2021. “Probably the best embarrassing moment in the history of this country, where we lost lives, left Americans behind, and surrendered $85 billion worth of some of the finest military equipment anywhere in the world,” he claimed.
In reality, Trump’s figure is entirely false. Even if a significant quantity of military equipment that had been provided before by the US to Afghan government forces was truly abandoned to the Taliban after the US withdrawal, the Defense Department estimated that the equipment was actually worth $7.1 billion, which is a chunk of about $18.6 billion worth of equipment provided to Afghan forces between 2005 and 2021.
Some of this equipment left behind was seen as inoperable before US forces decided to withdraw. Trump’s claim that $85 billion worth of equipment was left behind has no basis whatsoever. There are also other fact-checkers who have previously explained that the number was nothing but a rounded-up figure (which, by the way, it’s closer to $83 billion) for the whole amount of money the Congress decided upon during the war to a fund that was meant to support the Afghan security forces.
Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Trump said that his administration “filled up” the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a reserve that has been “virtually drained” by the current administration. In reality, EVERYTHING he claimed is false, as he didn’t fill up the reserve, and it’s not virtually drained either.
Even if he boasted on multiple occasions about the fact that he “filled up the reserve”, the truth is exactly the opposite. The reserve had fewer barrels of crude when he left the office than when he took it in 2017.
It’s also true that this is not entirely his fault, as the law asks for some mandatory sales from the reserve, only for budgeting reasons, and the Democrats decided to block the funding that was required to execute Trump’s 2020 directive to buy other tens of millions more barrels, and fill the reserve to no less than its maximum capacity. However, it’s not like it actually got filled!
Even more, CNN’s Matt Egan and Phil Mattingly even reported in mid-October that the US reserve is still the biggest in the world. This is still valid, even after President Biden decided to release a major amount from the reserve, to help keep oil prices down, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (also before the midterms). It’s known that the reserve had over 396 million barrels of crude oil in November.
