Tillerson tours US Embassy in London criticized by Trump

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Monday visited the new U.S. Embassy in London, which has been the subject of criticism from President Trump.

Tillerson met with U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom Woody Johnson and some of the Marines who are stationed at the facility, Reuters reported.

The new embassy opened last week on Nine Elms Lane.

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Trump earlier this month said he canceled his trip to London for the opening of the new embassy because it was part of a bad real estate deal.

Johnson, however, penned an op-ed in a British newspaper praising the facility as the “most secure, hi-tech and environmentally friendly embassy that the United States has ever built.”

While Trump blamed the Obama administration, the move to relocate the embassy dated back to 2008, when then-President George W. Bush’s State Department announced it had purchased the property.

Robert Tuttle, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom at the time, said the new facility would be more modern, secure and environmentally stable.

The U.S. sold its old embassy building in 2009, and developers broke ground on the new site in 2013.