Donald Trump slams ‘horrible and lousy’ US embassy in London ahead of July visit to the UK

Chloe Chaplain29 April 2018

Donald Trump has hit out at that “horrible and lousy” US embassy in London ahead of his planned visit to the UK in July.

The US President has renewed his criticism of the embassy after it was relocated from Grosvenor Square in the centre of the capital to a new location Nine Elms.

He slammed the location and said the embassy was a bad deal for the US.

Speaking at a rally in Michigan, he said: "In the UK, in London, we had the best site in all of London. The best site. Well, some genius said, we're gonna sell the site and then we're going to take the money and build a new embassy. That sounds good right, but you've got to have money left over if you do that, right?"

Anti-Trump protesters outside the new US Embassy in Nine Elms, London
PA

Mr Trump said he thought - but would have to check - that officials sold the site for 250 million dollars.

He said: "They go out and they buy a horrible location. And they build a new embassy. That's the good news. The bad news is it cost over a billion dollars."

Mr Trump, a billionaire who made his fortune as a property magnate, cancelled a planned trip to London to open the embassy earlier this year, complaining the move to an "off location" south of the Thames had been a "bad deal".

It is thought his decision may have been driven by a fear of protests in the capital.

The Madame Tussauds wax figure of US President Donald Trump outside the new US Embassy in Nine Elms
PA

However he repeated his assertion that it was down to dissatisfaction with the embassy project.

Mr Trump, who has rescheduled a visit to the UK on July 13, told the rally on Saturday: "By the way, they wanted me to cut the ribbon on the embassy and I said I'm not going. I don't wanna do it.

"I said, 'I'm not cutting that ribbon'. I said 'I'm not going'."

Blaming his predecessors for the embassy move, Mr Trump called it a "Bush-Obama special", that "could have been stopped by Obama".

But in an emollient last comment he said: "Hey, hopefully we'll have many years of success with that embassy."

After the date of Mr Trump's visit was confirmed, an event page was set up on Facebook organising a protest outside 10 Downing Street.

More than 120,000 people have expressed an interest in attending.

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