Trump slams China over Air Force One stairs incident
Donald Trump has a somewhat hypnotizing obsession with China, and an incident at the G-20 economic summit in Hangzhou has set him off on his latest rant.
As many critics have pointed out, when President Obama landed in Hangzhou on Saturday, he was not greeted by a red carpet at the bottom of his airplane staircase, as many other world leaders were. But "I wouldn't over-crank the significance of it," Obama said of the alleged snub. Obama instead used a built-in rear staircase to exit Air Force One:
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Trump took offense to the treatment. "They have pictures of other leaders going there coming down with beautiful red carpet," he said. "And Obama's coming down a metal staircase, probably was built in China, wasn't built here. A metal staircase in the back of the plane."
Time political reporter Zeke Miller and The Guardian's Ben Jacobs noted that "Obama used the American-made stairs built into Air Force One." The South China Post also reported the stairs were American, claiming that because the driver of the rolling staircase did not speak English, the U.S. opted to use its own mechanisms for the president to exit the plane.
Still, it is the gesture that matters and Trump said if it was him, he wouldn't have gotten off the plane. "I'd say, you know folks, I respect you a lot, but let's get out of here," Trump said.
