BRIDGEWATER, N.J./WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump will lay out his long-awaited U.S. strategy for the war in Afghanistan in a prime-time television address to the American people on Monday night, the White House said on Sunday.
A White House statement said Trump’s 9 p.m. (0100 GMT Tuesday) speech from Fort Myer, Virginia, near Washington, would “provide an update on the path forward for America’s engagement in Afghanistan and South Asia.”
It will be Trump’s first prime-time address to the country apart from a speech to Congress he gave in February that is part of an annual tradition for U.S. presidents.
Trump, ending a working vacation at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, reached his decision on Afghanistan after lengthy talks with his top military and national security aides at Camp David, Maryland, on Friday.
The president, who launched a strategy review for the region shortly after taking office in January, has expressed fatigue at the long-running Afghan war launched by then-President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, and privately questioned whether sending more American troops was wise, U.S. officials said.
“We’re not winning,” he told advisers in a mid-July meeting, questioning whether Army General John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, should be fired, an official said.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has argued that a U.S. military presence is needed to protect against the ongoing threat from Islamist militants, the official said.
