President Donald Trump said in a Tweet on Thursday afternoon that General Jim Mattis, his secretary of defense, will be retiring at the end of February.
Mattis has been on the job since the beginning of the Trump administration. He was one of several generals to join the administration early on, many of whom have already left or announced plans to leave, including General Michael Flynn and General John Kelly, who most recently served as White House chief of staff.
“During Jim’s tenure, tremendous progress has been made, especially with respect to the purchase of new fighting equipment,” Trump wrote on Twitter.
In a follow-up Tweet, Trump praised Mattis’ ability to push American allies.
“General Mattis was a great help to me in getting allies and other countries to pay their share of military obligations,” Trump wrote.
Trump said he will announce his new pick for defense secretary “shortly.”
In his letter of resignation to Trump, Mattis mentioned several areas where he and Trump may not have agreed, including on issues pertaining to U.S. allies, the Associated Press reports.
“Because you have the right to have a secretary of defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position,” Mattis’ letter said, according to AP. “While the U.S. remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies.”
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