Foreign leaders, including from Saudi Arabia and China, lavish Trump with $140,000 in gifts

The diplomatic goodies include a $6,400 ruby and emerald pendant necklace from King Salman.

March 6, 2019, 2:15 PM EST
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Foreign leaders showered President Donald Trump and his family with more than $140,000 in gifts during their first year in the White House, with China and Saudi Arabia among the most lavish givers.

According to the State Department's annual accounting of such gifts, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave Trump and first lady Melania Trump the two most expensive presents in 2017: an ornate calligraphy display and presentation box worth $14,400 and a porcelain dinnerware set that includes plates imprinted with the pink house at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort worth $16,250. Like all of the other gifts to Trump, his wife, daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, those were turned over to the National Archives.

The Saudis and Gulf Arab states gave at least $24,120 in gifts to the Trumps. Those included a $6,400 ruby and emerald pendant necklace from Saudi Arabia's King Salman, a gold-plated fighter jet model worth $4,850 from Bahrain's crown prince, a $3,700 bronze statue of three oryx from the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, a set of gold-plated Kuwaiti coins worth $1,610 from Kuwait's emir and "royal" perfume in a reptile-skin carrying case worth $1,260 from the deputy prime minister of Oman.

Others in the Middle East did not stint when it came to presents for the first family, according to the 64-page list compiled by the State Department's Office of Protocol, which is to be published in the Federal Register on Thursday.

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