Trump: Keep the drone!

Curveball at China

China is promising to return a US submarine drone that its navy seized from international waters — but president-elect Donald Trump thinks we should just say, ‘No thanks.’

“We should tell China that we don’t want the drone they stole back,” Trump tweeted Saturday night.

“Let them keep it!”

The Pentagon had reached a deal earlier Saturday with the Chinese to turn over the US Navy research drone, which a Chinese crew had plucked from the South China Sea Thursday.

“Through direct engagement with Chinese authorities, we have secured an understanding that the Chinese will return the UUV [Underwater Unmanned Vehicle] to the United States,” Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said.

US military officials did not say when or how the drone would be returned.

They were tempered in their wording, objecting to what they called China’s “unlawful seizure” of their equipment.

But shortly before 9 a.m., just before the deal was announced, Trump lambasted the Chinese for outright “stealing” the device.

“China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters — rips it out of water and takes it to China in unprec- edented act,” he tweeted.

Chinese leaders, meanwhile, have accused US officials of overreacting.

“China and the United States have been communicating about this process. It is inappropriate and unhelpful for a resolution that the US has unilaterally hyped up the issue,” Senior Col. Yang Yujun, a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman, said early Saturday.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) tweeted that Trump’s “escalation of a diplomatic crisis with China” was “madness.”

But Sen. John McCain (RAriz.) on Friday called the incident a “flagrant violation of the freedom of the seas.”

Pentagon officials said the drone was measuring ocean conditions, but Chinese officials accused the United States of conducting “surveillance and military surveys” with the equipment.

Earlier this month, Trump accepted a phone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ingwen, breaking with diplomatic practice and riling China, which claims sovereignty over the island.

The president-elect has also questioned America’s One China policy, which recognizes Taiwan as part of China.

“This was very likely a highly planned and escalatory move to show China will not take [these] matters lightly,” Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interests, told The Hill.