The Queens-born Donald Trump, whose wife still has a Manhattan address, won’t even get a Bronx cheer when he returns home for his first time since becoming president.
Angry protests and security closures are set to provide the backdrop to Trump’s talks with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull set for Thursday.
The Republican is the first commander-in-chief from New York since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and while he spent his entire life living in the city until moving to Washington on the eve of his inauguration, he’s expected to spend just hours in the Democratic stronghold, where his policies are severely disliked.
He will meet Turnbull on board a decommissioned World War II-era aircraft carrier – now the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum berthed on the Hudson River on the West Side of Manhattan.
Trump and Turnbull are set to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea by US and Australian forces against the Japanese in the leaders’ first encounter since a tetchy phone call rattled ties in late January.
But international diplomacy aside, New Yorkers are less than thrilled about welcoming a president to a city that has been a bastion of anti-Trump protests since his shock election in November.
Around 80 percent of the city’s electorate voted for his opponent Hillary Clinton, and the massive police presence – and cost – of securing his Trump Tower home and headquarters in the wake of the election were deeply unpopular.
His policies to restrict immigration, the administration’s rollback of federal protections for transgender students and its assault on Obamacare are all widely unwelcome in America’s most populous, and one of its most liberal, cities.
Historically an entry point for immigrants from around the world, more than three million of New York’s 8.5 million residents were born overseas.
Trump’s visit is expected to be fleeting.
Reports say he will spend the night and weekend in Bedminster at his New Jersey golf club, rather than return to Trump Tower on one of the busiest stretches of Fifth Avenue.
Local politicians, who are predominantly Democrats, are mostly staying away.
‘We hope this is the mother of all snubs,’ State Sen. Brad Hoylman, a Democrat from Midtown Manhattan, told Politico.
‘Nothing he has done thus far should give any New Yorker confidence that he’s looking out for the Big Apple – even when it comes to counterterrorism or funding for security around his penthouse – New Yorkers are getting screwed,’ Hoylman continued.
‘We prefer he stay out of the city and spend his time elsewhere,’ the state lawmaker added.
Multiple groups are organizing protests, at DeWitt Clinton Park near the Intrepid and outside Trump Tower, where First Lady Melania and the couple’s 11-year-old son Barron have continued to live through the school year.
‘He’s threatened to deport our neighbors, take away our health care, reject refugees from our shores and give even more tax breaks to billionaires,’ says the Facebook ad for the protest near the Intrepid expected to draw at least 2,300 people.
The New York Immigration Coalition announced a day-long protest outside Trump Tower from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST.
‘This is still our New York, and we will fight to ensure that it remains a place for all of us,’ said Steven Choi, the group’s executive director.
Police have kept quiet about the details of the security operation, likely to further snarl already notorious Manhattan traffic.
‘There will be temporary closures in the vicinity of the Intrepid and Trump Tower when the president is in town,’ a spokesman told AFP.
Many expected Trump to return more frequently to New York, the city synonymous with his past life as a brash real estate developer and celebrity fixture in the tabloid press dating back to the 1980s.
Instead, he has spent weekends at his estate in Florida.
‘Going back is very expensive for the country,’ Trump told Fox News in an interview broadcast Friday. ‘I feel guilty when I go back to here, because I hate to see the New Yorkers with the streets closed.’
His arrival comes just days after wrangling over who picks up the tab was settled.
The city says it costs $308,000 a day when the president comes to town, and $127,000 to $146,000 to protect his family. It says it spent $24 million on protecting Trump Tower between the election and the inauguration.
But Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio this week welcomed $61 million of funding set aside in the federal budget for New York and law enforcement in other localities to protect the first family.
‘We are getting what we are owed,’ announced the vehement Trump critic.
‘That’s good news for our city and the hardworking police officers faced with this unprecedented security challenge.’
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