Near the start of a five-post thread on his Saturday trade talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Trump made an unfortunate phrasing decision on Twitter Monday morning:
The phrase in question is "BIG leap forward," which observers quickly noted sounds an awful lot like the "Great Leap Forward," a 1958 to 1962 campaign by Chairman Mao Zedong to industrialize communist China which left between 20 and 55 million people dead.
The Great Leap Forward has been called the worst man-made disaster in world history. It led to mass-scale famine in China, starving tens of millions while millions more were executed or tortured to death by the state.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Trump's tweet does not indicate whether he realized the allusion he was making. But Factba.se — which offers a searchable database of all Trump's public comments as president — does not turn up any other instances in which he has used the phrase "leap forward."
-
DC sues Trump to end Guard 'occupation'Speed Read D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb argues that the unsolicited military presence violates the law
-
RFK Jr. faces bipartisan heat in Senate hearingSpeed Read The health secretary defended his leadership amid CDC turmoil and deflected questions about the restricted availability of vaccines
-
White House defends boat strike as legal doubts mountSpeed Read Experts say there was no legal justification for killing 11 alleged drug-traffickers
-
Epstein accusers urge full file release, hint at own listspeed read A rally was organized by Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie, who are hoping to force a vote on their Epstein Files Transparency Act
-
Court hands Harvard a win in Trump funding battleSpeed Read The Trump administration was ordered to restore Harvard's $2 billion in research grants
-
Florida aims to end all state vaccine requirementsSpeed Read Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to cut vaccine access and install anti-vaccine activists at the FDA and CDC
-
US kills 11 on 'drug-carrying boat' off VenezuelaSpeed Read Trump claimed those killed in the strike were 'positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists' shipping drugs to the US
-
Trump vows to send federal forces to Chicago, BaltimoreSpeed Read The announcement followed a California judge ruling that Trump's LA troop deployment was illegal
