After it was announced that President Donald Trump would be canceling his visit next month to London to open the new U.S. embassy there, London mayor Sadiq Khan said that Londoners “have made it clear that Donald Trump is not welcome here.”
Trump claimed on Twitter on Thursday night that he refused to travel to London in order to protest “the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for “peanuts,” only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars.” (In fact, the building was put up for sale a week before Obama was elected in 2008.)
“Bad deal,” Trump tweeted. “Wanted me to cut ribbon-NO!”
But Khan says otherwise. In a statement posted to Twitter, Khan said that Trump’s visit to London next month would “without a doubt have been met by mass peaceful protests.”
“It appears that President Trump got the message from the many Londoners who admire America and Americans but find his policies and actions the polar opposite of our city’s values of inclusion, diversity, and tolerance,” Khan wrote. “This just reinforces what a mistake it was for [Prime Minister] Theresa May to rush and extend an invitation of a state visit in the first place.”
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