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Updated: Nov 19, 2018 09:07 IST

US president Donald Trump on Sunday defended his administration’s decision to cut aid to Pakistan saying the latter doesn’t do “a damn thing for us” despite receiving a billions of dollars from America.

The US suspended nearly $2 billion in military aid to Pakistan early this year for not taking decision action against terrorists operating from its soil. The Trump administration has since conveyed its irritation and expectations for Islamabad tying counter-terrorism measure to improvement in ties.

Osama bin Laden lived in Pakistan and the US was supporting Pakistan, the president said in an interview that aired on Fox News Sunday. “We were giving them $1.3 billion a year -- which we don’t give them anymore, by the way, I ended it because they don’t do anything for us, they don’t do a damn thing for us.”

“You know, living – think of this – living in Pakistan, beautifully in Pakistan in what I guess they considered a nice mansion, I don’t know, I’ve seen nicer.”

“But living in Pakistan right next to the military academy, everybody in Pakistan knew he was there,” he added.

He was referring to the big house bin Laden had lived in in Abbottabad where he was killed in a raid by US SEALs in 2011.

Pakistan had repeatedly denied the government was aware bin Laden was staying in that house close to Pakistani’s elite military academy. But it has never been able to convince Americans, who continue to believe Islamabad knew of it.

US-Pakistan relations have been in a downward spiral since and continue to plummet because of perception in Washington DC that Islamabad has doe nothing to take decisive action against terrorists operating from its soil in Afghanistan and in India.