Donald Trump has awkwardly inserted himself into the growing diplomatic dispute regarding China’s seizure of a U.S. drone ship.In a bizarre Twitter rant on Saturday, the Donald Trump slammed China for its seizure of a U.S. underwater drone ship in the South China Sea two days earlier.
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“China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters – rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented act,” he wrote, misspelling the word “unprecedented.”
The post was later deleted and replaced with one in which he spelled the word correctly, but not before others on Twitter and even the Merriam-Webster’s Twitter account mocked the typo.
This is madness. A 7:30am Saturday escalation of diplomatic crisis w China via Twitter, w misspelling. https://t.co/p9QPZsr2yv
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) December 17, 2016
Trump deleted it, but not before I saved it. Freudian slip? We can all hope he, too, soon will be “unpresidented.” #LearnToSpell pic.twitter.com/tRjYEYVMJl
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) December 17, 2016
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Good morning! The #WordOfTheDay is…not ‘unpresidented’. We don’t enter that word. That’s a new one. https://t.co/BJ45AtMNu4
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) December 17, 2016
Trump’s Twitter rant came after China’s Foreign Ministry said the two countries were working to “appropriately handle this issue.” The ministry later warned that “hyping up” the incident would not help ensure a smooth outcome.
The drone was taken Thursday after being deployed by the oceanographic and surveillance vessel USS Bowditch. On Friday, the Pentagon demanded its immediate return.
Earlier this month, Trump sparked controversy when he spoke by phone with Taiwan’s president Tsai Ying-wen, breaking with decades of U.S. policy with China. He has also questioned why the U.S. must be bound by the “one China” policy.
