Korean-American Student Calls Out Presidential Hopeful Donald Trump About South Korea’s Military Support From The U.S.
During the No Labels Problem Solver Convention in New Hampshire on Monday, Korean-American Harvard Student Joseph Choe created buzz by calling out on Donald Trump for his comments on the defense alliance between the U.S. and South Korea, reported Korea JoongAng Daily Oct. 17.
Trump allegedly claimed repeatedly that South Korea is very much dependent on the U.S. military support and gives nothing back in return. This, according to 20-year-old Choe, is not true.
Despite Choe's question being initially rejected by an event organizer due to being considered uninteresting, the Harvard student still forced his way to the stage during the question and answer session, catching the attention of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
"Do you have a mic, guy?" said Trump while pointing to Choe. "Go ahead. Shout it out," Trump said impatiently.
Choe managed to thank the mogul for attending the conference before he began saying his piece.
"Basically you said that South Korea takes advantage of the United States in terms of the defense spending on the Korean Peninsula," pointed Choe. "You said that they don't pay anything. However, I just wanted to get the facts straight."
Trump interrupted the student saying, "Are you from South Korea?"
"I'm not," Choe replied. "I was born in Texas, raised in Colorado," at which point some of the audience started cheering and laughing.
"No matter where I'm from I would like to get my facts straight," continued Choe. "And I wanted to tell you that that's not true. South Korea paid $861 million."
"Which is peanuts compared to what it's costing us," interrupted Trump.
The event organizer hurried towards the stage and took away Choe's microphone.
"I don't care who you are, whether you're the prime minister or Donald Trump, if you say something factually wrong or do something factually wrong, I'll call you out on it," explained Choe in an interview.
Color Lines noted Oct. 16 that Trump's "Where Are You From" moment just reaffirmed his reputation of being xenophobic and that it is considered a marginalization by sociologist Jennifer Lee.
"It seems like this innocuous question, like people are just asking your identity," Lee explained, "but they're really challenging this idea of who is American, which is, at the core, an offensive question. It's this persistent perception that Asian-Americans are not American, that they are perpetual foreigners."
Choe reportedly will not vote for Trump for president, but wants him to know, "I'm American as it gets."