Comparing Putin’s vs Michelle Obama’s China Trips: 40+ Business Deals vs. What?
According to RT, President Putin’s visit to Shanghai has netted Russia more than 40 business contracts with China – ranging from a $400 billion gas contract to a railroad bridge across the Amur River to deals in finance, investment, aircraft and automobiles. In sharp contrast, the total cost of Michelle Obama’s junket to China with her mother and the kids remains shrouded in mystery – along with what, if anything, that trip accomplished.
And while most of the mainstream media seems fixated on talking about Putin’s palaces right now e.g. Exclusive: Russian state project helped fund ‘Putin’s palace’, what we do know about how much Michelle Obama’s trip to China could have cost taxpayers comes from various alternative media sources (Ironically, we seem to have a clearer picture of what Mr. Putin’s bathroom looks like than how much all of the Obama trips are costing us).
The Cost of Michelle Obama’s Trip to China
From the Daily Mail (Michelle Obama plans pricey trip to China as the First Family is criticized for spending hundreds of millions of dollars traveling on the taxpayer’s dime):
- For two vacations the Obamas took in 2013 – one to Hawaii and one to Martha’s Vineyard – records show that it cost taxpayers a whopping $7,396,531 in flight expenses alone.
- During an August trip to California, during which Obama attended a party held by Democratic fundraiser Jeffrey Katzenberg and again appeared on the Tonight Show, taxpayers paid more than $2 million in travel expenses for the president and his security detail.
- According to Judicial Watch, it cost more than $11 million for the president and his wife to travel to Africa to attend Nelson Mandela’s funeral in December of last year. According to the New York Daily News, the Obamas were only in Africa for ‘less than 13 hours.’
- But that trip was nothing compared to a 2013 visit the Obamas made to the Dark Continent, which reportedly cost tax payer more than $100 million. On the 2013 trip, some of the reported expenditures include the stationing of a Navy aircraft carrier off the coast of Africa equipped with a fully staffed medical trauma center, military cargo planes to fly a fleet of 56 support vehicles to transport the Obamas – complete with 14 limousines and three trucks carrying bulletproof glass to cover the windows of the hotels where the Obamas were to stay – and fighter jets that flew in shifts to provide coverage over the president’s airspace for the entire trip.
- In June, the first lady went to Ireland for a two-day trip. The cost to taxpayers: $5 million. Michelle Obama reportedly stayed at a $3,300-per-night hotel in Dublin, and needed to book 30 rooms at the posh Shelbourne Hotel for her staff and security detail.
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