Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross on Monday said that President Donald Trump’s order to launch a missile strike on a Syrian air base in April “was in lieu of after-dinner entertainment.”
According to a report by Variety, Ross made the remark at the Milken Institute Global Conference, where he discussed Trump’s meeting at his private Mar-a-Lago club with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the night of the strike.
“Just as dessert was being served, the President explained to Mr. Xi he had something he wanted to tell him, which was the launching of 59 missiles into Syria,” Ross said, as quoted by Variety. “It was in lieu of after-dinner entertainment.”
The crowd laughed, according to the report, at which point Ross added: “The thing was, it didn’t cost the president anything to have that entertainment.”
According to a report by MarketWatch, the U.S. military, on the other hand, likely paid around $1 million for each Tomahawk missile — 59 of which were used in the strike.
