Being president of the United States comes with a lot of perks: Big airplane, personal chef, and—if you’re Donald Trump—a laundry list of fancy gifts from foreign dignitaries hoping to stoke your ego.
According to the Associated Press, heads of state from China, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere spent the first year of the Trump administration showering the president with expensive presents, totaling around $140,000 for all of 2017. (The full list of gifts is collected by the State Department’s Office of Protocol, and is expected to be officially entered into the federal register on Thursday.)
From the AP:
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.
Now every time the president eats his overcooked steak, he can look down and be reminded that he is fabulously wealthy. What a thoughtful gift!
Trump also reportedly received a jeweled necklace from Saudi Arabia’s King Salman ($6,400), a “gold plated” model of a fighter jet from Bahrain’s crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa ($4,850) and “a personalized hardcover book of Psalms” worth nearly $5,000 from Israel’s Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, who manages the Western Wall.
That’s all well and good, but it’s really the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc who went right for the kill, giving Trump a gem-encrusted portrait of himself, valued at $1,880. And we all know how much the president loves looking at pictures of himself!
Unfortunately for Trump, when it comes to getting gifts, it’s the thought that counts. As the AP notes, all the ego-stoking presents received by the president have been turned over to the national archive. Bummer.