Trump flirts with White House bid (AFP is a World-Wide News Service)

By: AFP 2011-04-29 17:34

Las Vegas - Donald Trump says that if elected president he would levy a 25% tariff on all Chinese goods, occupy Iraq so America can keep its oil and charge South Korea for keeping US forces there.

The colorful and mega-rich US real estate mogul is not yet officially a candidate for the 2012 Republican race to oust Barack Obama, 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 will decide by June 1 whether to run for the GOP nomination to oppose Democrat Obama.

But he sounded like a candidate as he ticked off attack after attack on Obama and several nations around the world whom he believes are mistreating the United States.

"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," said Trump, whose company develops hotels, resorts and office complexes and who helms the reality TV show "The Apprentice."

"I have a great life, I love my life. I'd have to give a lot of stuff up, but it's peanuts compared to what this would be. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised."

The "Draft Trump" event was held at the gambling mecca's Treasure Island Hotel-Casino by several Republican women's groups from the region, although the ballroom was donated by the resort's owner and Trump friend, Phil Ruffin.

It began with a series of patriotic songs and took on a bit of a carnival atmosphere as Trump impersonator Robert Ensler snapped photos with audience members.

The speaker's frequently salty language amused the crowd, including 72-year-old Yolanda Smith of Henderson, Nevada, who believes Obama is a Socialist.

"He doesn't do any political b.s.," Smith said. "He was real and he speaks to America the way America talks to each other. I felt like he was talking to me today."

The talk came a day after Obama released his birth certificate, a move that Trump took credit for because he had been pushing the issue of whether the president was a natural born US citizen and thus eligible to hold the office.

Trump crowed about that in Las Vegas, too, wondering why Obama did not release it sooner instead of putting "this country through all this turmoil."

Trump took repeated shots at China, and marveled over Obama hosting Chinese leader Hu Jintao for a state dinner earlier this year, saying: "When people are screwing you, you don't give them a state dinner.

"Here's what happens if if I'm there. We sit down in my office for a few hours and we make a deal where they stop manipulating the currency. If we make a deal, maybe we give them a state dinner.

"If they don't make a deal, they take McDonald's and go home."

Trump also mocked NATO's effort to protect rebels in Libya attempting to overthrow strongman Muammar Gaddafi. In a typical quip, he bellowed: "And who's the leader of the group? France.

"France! They wanted to go in first. We haven't seen them since."

The businessman also trained his fire on the decision by former US president George W. Bush to invade and occupy Iraq, saying that "the smart people weren't in charge."

Yet he expressed concern that when the United States pulls out, Iran will take over Iraq and enjoy the bounty of its oil.

"In the old days, when you had a war and you won the war, it was yours," he said. "Now, when we have a war, we spend all that money and lose all those lives and then we leave. What do we do this for?"