"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. It was in lieu of after-dinner entertainment,” Ross revealed when speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference in California on Monday.
“The thing was, it didn’t cost the president anything to have that entertainment,” he added.
The remarks referred to the order of Donald trump to launch dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles on Shayrat air base in Syria late on April 6, following the alleged use of chemical weapons by President Assad’s forces in the country’s Idlib Province on April 4.
The Syrian government denies any involvement in the Idlib incident, saying it would never use chemicals weapons against anyone, even terrorists.
According to Syrian officials, the US missile strike killed six people and left several others wounded.
Commenting on the remarks of Wilbur Ross, Alexander Domrin, an expert in American studies and professor at the Russian Higher School of Economics told Radio Sputnik that it puts the President "in an awkward position."
"It is a lame joke. It not so much speaks about the US' foreign policy, as it reveals that there is 'confusion and vacillation' in Trump's administration, when one hand has no idea what the other one is doing," he told Sputnik.
He further explained that the US Commerce Secretary has allowed a remark which is clearly beyond his competency and expertise. And this is quite a lamentable state of affairs.
"I haven't seen such lecherousness, which we are currently encountering in the White House and in the Trump administration, for at least several decades. Trump's reaction [to the remark] will be the most interesting to come, as the US Commerce Secretary has clearly made him loos as an idiot," he concluded.
