LOC23:28
20:28 GMT
WASHINGTON, Dec 12 (KUNA) -- President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act, which provides USD 692 billion for US Defense Department spending in 2018.
"This legislation will enhance our readiness, expand and modernize our forces, and help provide our service members with the tools that they need to fight and to win," Trump said during a White House bill signing ceremony.
"We will fight and win. But hopefully, with this, we won't have to fight, because people will not be wanting to fight with us."
The legislation authorizes funds "for our continued campaign to obliterate" the so-called Islamic State (IS), Trump said.
"As you know, we've won in Syria, we've won in Iraq," he said. "But they spread to other areas, and we're getting them as fast as they spread."
"We've had more success with ISIS in the last eight months than the entire previous administration has had during its entire term," he said, referring to IS and the eight years of the administration of Barack Obama.
The legislation "approves missile defense capabilities as we continue our campaign to create maximum pressure on the vile dictatorship in North Korea," Trump said.
"We're working very diligently on that -- building up forces. We'll see how it all turns out. It's a very bad situation -- a situation that should have been handled long ago by other administrations." (end)
rm.ibi