Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is continuing his long-standing feud with President of the United States Donald Trump, claiming the U.S. leader only cares about “White America”.
Indulging in the identity politics which have become a staple of the modern Labour Party, Khan accused President Trump of being racist by suggesting that his campaign slogan “America First” really meant “White America First”.
The mayor also said that President Trump is the “the very opposite of what NATO is all about”.
“The concern we have is when President Trump talks about America First — does he really mean White America First? That’s a big concern for many of us,” Khan said in an interview with CNN.
Khan also said that President Trump “on many, many occasions… gives us the impression that all he cares about is White America”.
“When you see… the President of the USA calling people rapists because they happen to be Mexican, having a travel ban against people of my faith, that leads to huge concerns across the world,” he claimed.
The Pakistani-heritage mayor’s comments come in the wake of the NATO summit in London, in which Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the United States an “invaluable ally” and said the United Kingdom is “fully committed” to the defence alliance.
Khan criticised Johnson, calling into question President Trump’s leadership of NATO.
“It’s the very opposite of what NATO is all about. It’s the very opposite of what the EU is all about. The very opposite of the multilateralism that the U.S. and the UK have led on for the last 70 years,” Khan said.
Secretary-General of the alliance Jens Stoltenberg praised President Trump’s tough stance on getting NATO members to fulfil their spending commitments, crediting the President with securing $100 billion in additional investments from member-states.
In June, Sadiq Khan said that the United Kingdom should not grant the President a state visit, accusing Trump of engaging in “xenophobia, racism, and ‘otherness’ as an electoral tactic”.
President Trump fired back against the Labour politician, saying that Khan is a “stone-cold loser” and that he has done a “terrible job” as Mayor of London.
“I look at cities in Europe, and I can be specific if you’d like. You have a mayor who has done a terrible job in London. He has done a terrible job,” said Trump.
“Take a look at the terrorism that is taking place. Look at what is going on in London. I think he has done a very bad job on terrorism,” he added.
Terror attacks and violent crime, particularly knife crime, has risen sharply during Khan’s mayoralty, in part due to his re-election promise to “do all in my power” to reduce the use of stop-and-search by the Metropolitan Police, which he believed was implicitly racist.
Last week Khan came under fire for saying that “our strength is our diversity” following the London Bridge terrorist attack, in which Usman Khan killed two people and injured three others.
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