TRUMP MOCKS CALL CENTRES

WASHINGTON: Donald Trump has told supporters at a rally in Delaware that he called his credit card company’s customer care service once to check if they were indeed in India, as he had heard.

“So I called up under the guise of I’m checking on my card, I said, ‘Where are you from?’” Trump said on Friday.

“‘We are from India’,” Trump said he was told.

And he proceeded to hang up, saying that’s all he wanted to find out. Trump mentioned this experience in the context of a point he was making, in his typical rambling fashion, on how the US gets out-thought on international trade deals.

He went on to say, “India is a great place. I am not upset with other leaders. I am upset with our leaders for being so stupid.”

Building up to this point, Trump said he was not angry with any of the countries that had bested the US on trade — not China, not Japan, not Mexico, not Vietnam and not India.

It was at this point that he brought up his call to the call centre. Trump was campaigning in Delaware for the coming primaries on April 26, when a bunch of northeastern states hold presidential nominating contests for Republicans and Democrats.

The Republican frontrunner frequently refers to US trade partners such as China, Japan and, occasionally, India that may have taken away American jobs through outsourcing and offshoring.

He promises to bring those jobs back. On Friday, he said he will make Apple, which manufactures all its devices abroad — mostly in China, bring back those operations to the US.