Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said a President Trump would not be throwing a dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping but rather would get the leader fast-food so they could get down to business.
“I would not be throwing him a dinner,” Mr. Trump said on Monday evening’s “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News. “I’d get him a McDonald’s hamburger, and I’d say we gotta get down to work because you can’t continue to devalue. “
Amid turmoil in the global markets and finger-pointing at China, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, also a 2016 GOP presidential candidate, on Monday called for President Obama to cancel Mr. Xi’s state visit to the White House in September.
Mr. Trump predicted that he’d get along with the Chinese leader “very well.”
“I have great relationships with China and the Chinese,” he said.
“You know, we’ll give him a steak dinner and what he’s done is sucked all of our jobs and he’s sucked the money right out of our country,” Mr. Trump said.
Asked by host Bill O’Reilly if he would really give him a “Big Mac,” Mr. Trump said, “Yeah, but I’d give him probably a double-size[d] Big Mac.”
“Look, it’s not so much the companies‚ it’s our government that allowed China to do this to us,” Mr. Trump said. “Our government should have stopped China from devaluing.”
He called for the government to put a tariff on Chinese goods.
“You have to do that, and then you bring it back to normal,” he said. “You have no choice. You do that.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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