Donald Trump says that if elected US president he would levy a 25 percent tariff on all Chinese goods, occupy Iraq so the US can keep its oil and charge South Korea for keeping US forces there.
The US real-estate mogul is not yet officially a candidate for next year’s Republican Party presidential nomination race, but he increasingly looks like one.
In a fiery and obscenity-laced address to a cheering crowd of more than 1,000 Republicans in Las Vegas on Thursday, Trump said he would decide by June 1 whether to run for the Republican nomination to oppose Obama.
However, Trump sounded like a candidate as he ticked off attack after attack on Obama and several nations around the world who he believes are mistreating the US.
“What China’s really done is manipulate their currency,” he said, rehearsing an anti-China argument seen in recent media appearances before the packed crowd here, in a nascent Trump stump speech.
“They are abusing this country like we’ve never been abused before. Well, unless you count OPEC. They want to raise the price of oil. Why? Because we have nobody in Washington to say: ‘You’re not going to raise that ... price.’”
Trump, 64, has emerged in polls as a serious prospect from among a weak Republican field despite the fact that the political establishment and pundits generally do not take him seriously.
Recent polls have shown him ahead of both Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, former governors of US states who ran in 2008.
“I’m going to make a decision very soon,” Trump said.
Trump also mocked NATO’s effort to protect rebels in Libya attempting to overthrow strongman Muammar Qaddafi and the decision by former US president George W. Bush to invade and occupy Iraq, saying that “the smart people weren’t in charge.”
He voiced concern that when the US pulls out, Iran will take over Iraq and enjoy the bounty of its oil.
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