Foreign leaders showered President Donald Trump and his family with more than $140,000 in gifts during their first year in the White House, with China and Saudi Arabia among the most lavish givers.
The Trumps received a personalized hardcover book of Psalms worth $4,500 from the rabbi in charge of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, a gold and diamond necklace and similar pendant from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre valued at $5,800 and a mother-of-pearl Nativity scene worth $4,200 from the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, as Associated Press says.
According to the State Department’s annual accounting of such gifts, 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. Like all of the other gifts to Trump, his wife, daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, those were turned over to the National Archives.
