US President Donald Trump on Wednesday, 22 January, said that the United States has not been treated fairly by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as it is not viewed as a developing nation, compared to China and India’s global status. The President was speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“World Trade Organisation, as you know,I’ve had a dispute running with them for quite a while, because our country hasn’t been treated fairly. China is viewed as a developing nation. India is viewed as a developing nation. We’re not viewed as a developing nation,” he said.
He added that China would not be the country it is today without the help of the WTO.
“As far as I am concerned, we are a developing nation too. But they (China & India) got tremendous advantages by the fact that they were considered ‘developing’ & we were not. And they shouldn’t be. But if they are, we are.”Donald Trump, President of The Unites States of America
According to the Associated Press, West Wing aides had hoped to keep the president centered on the economy at the forum in this resort town that has become synonymous with a brand of globalism that Trump rejects.
For the first day, Trump largely complied, spending most of Tuesday talking up a solid economy that advisers believe is the president’s best argument for reelection in November.
But on Wednesday, just before he was scheduled to head for home, Trump called for an impromptu news conference. At first, he stayed on message and on the economy. Then, less so.
He turned his anger on two major players in the impeachment trial. He called US Rep Jerry Nadler, D-New York, a "sleazebag” and asserted that US Rep Adam Schiff, D-California, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, was a “con job” and a “corrupt politician.”
The news conference soon morphed to an in-person version of the president’s Twitter feed, which features regular broadsides against the process that led to Trump's impeachment for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress as it investigated Trump’s push for Ukraine to probe one of his political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden.
As many of his top economic advisers silently stood by, Trump declared that he would love to attend his own trial by the Senate to “sit right in the front row and stare into their corrupt faces.” But he acknowledged that his lawyers would almost certainly counsel against it.
(With inputs from Associated Press)
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