Earlier this week, London Mayor Sadiq Khan
released a statement after US President Donald Trump cancelled his London visit
due next month. He claimed the real reason that forced Donald Trump to cancel the
visit is - he is very unpopular in his country.
Khan said Donald Trump finally got the message
that he was not welcome in London after many Londoners ran campaigns to say ‘no
to Donald Trump’ for pursuing a divisive agenda and asserted that ‘in case Trump
visited London, he would, without doubt, meet by mass protests.
Sadiq Khan @SadiqKhan
2:26 PM - 12 Jan 2018
Earlier, Trump had tweeted to let the world
know that he was cancelling his London visit. The reason he cited was his
distaste about the Barack Obama Administration decision of selling the existing
embassy building, best located and finest embassy in London, for peanuts and
shifting it to an off location, and that too, for a cost of $1.2 Billion.
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
10:27 AM - 12 Jan 2018
But as Mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted, Trump is
quite unpopular in Britain. Last year, he had to cancel his state visit to
Britain on British Prime Minister Theresa May’s invitation as he feared he was
too unpopular in Britain, something that Khan highlighted in the message he
tweeted, ‘what a mistake it was for Theresa May to rush and extend an
invitation of a state visit in the first place’.
Trump’s Britain state visit was scheduled for
June last year but it was postponed for October after fears of backlash over
Trump’s controversial travel ban targeting seven Muslim majority nations, a
report in The Sun said. Many British MPs had then snubbed Trump and protests
were planned. “In June it was said the trip was being postponed again until
people support him coming to the UK,” the report further added.
According to The Guardian, he even called
Theresa May to inform her that he did not want to come to Britain if there were
large-scale protests and he was postponing his state visit to the UK “until the
British public supports him coming.” And with this cancellation, it can be said
that Trump still fears that Britishers don’t like him.
Also, Trump misrepresented facts to make his
point here. He tweeted that the decision to shift the London Embassy was taken
by the Obama Administration but the fact is, the process to shift the US
Embassy was initiated by the government of George Bush, in October 2008,
another report by The Guardian said.
The Obama Administration finalized the deal
and the amount was certainly not in peanuts. The US Embassy building at
Mayfair, London was sold for £500m ($684 Million today). Barack Obama won the
US Presidential Election in November 2008 and his government was inaugurated in
January 2009.
©SantoshChaubey