“China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters - rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented act,” Donald Trump tweeted. | Getty Trump slams China's seizure of U.S. drone in tweet

Donald Trump responded to China’s seizure of an unmanned U.N. Navy vehicle on Saturday, calling it an “unpresidented act” in an apparent typo.

“China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters - rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented act,” the president-elect tweeted Saturday morning.


Trump’s tweet came as the U.S. and Chinese militaries held discussions over the underwater drone, which was seized on Thursday off the coast of the Philippines.

Shortly afterward, a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman said that China was prepared to hand over the drone, according to CNN.

"Upon confirming that the device was a US underwater drone, the Chinese side decided to transfer it to the US side in an appropriate manner," Sr. Col. Yang Yujun said in a statement.

"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. We express our regret over that."

The Pentagon confirmed later Saturday that China had agreed to return the drone.

"We have registered our objection to China's unlawful seizure of a U.S. unmanned underwater vehicle operating in international waters in the South China Sea. Through direct engagement with Chinese authorities, we have secured an understanding that the Chinese will return the UUV [unmanned underwater vehicle] to the United States." said Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary.

Jason Miller, the Trump transition team's communications director, credited the president-elect for the agreement in a tweet Saturday afternoon. "@realDonaldTrump gets it done: "China says it will return US drone it seized."

Saturday evening, the president-elect tweeted, "We should tell China that we don't want the drone they stole back.- let them keep it!"

The Pentagon on Friday demanded that China return the drone, which he said was “a sovereign immune vessel of the United States.”

“We call upon China to return our UUV immediately and to comply with all of its obligations under international law," Cook said.

Cook described the drone as “an unclassified ‘ocean glider’ system used around the world to gather military oceanographic data such as salinity, water temperature, and sound speed,” which he said was in the middle of carrying out “routine operations in accordance with international law” when it was seized by a Chinese navy ship.

"It is understood that China and the United States are using military channels to appropriately handle this issue,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry told Reuters on Saturday.

"It is ours, and it is clearly marked as ours and we would like it back. And we would like this not to happen again," Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis said.

China has claimed the South China Sea, off the coast of the Philippines, as its territorial waters, but the United States and its allies have pushed back against the Chinese claim.

In recent years, China has embarked on an aggressive campaign of building military outposts on isolated shoals in the South China Sea, and made other moves to intimidate countries bordering the disputed sea, such as the Philippines and Vietnam.

Trump provoked a stern response from the Chinese government when he accepted what he said was a congratulatory phone call from the president of Taiwan, upending a U.S. policy of avoiding direct high-level contact with what Beijing deems a rogue province.

China responded by warning the United States and Taiwan against further such moves, and began flying long-range bombers near the island. The Chinese state media has urged even more aggressive actions.

Answering a question about China during his final year-end news conference on Friday, President Barack Obama reminded Trump that “there’s only one president at a time.”

Obama said he had urged his successor to more carefully think through the potential consequences of his words and actions on the world stage.

“[M]y advice to him has been that before he starts having a lot of interactions with foreign governments other than the usual courtesy calls, that he should want to have his full team in place, that he should want his team to be fully briefed on what’s gone on in the past and where the potential pitfalls may be, where the opportunities are, what we’ve learned from eight years of experience,” Obama said.

“So that as he’s then maybe taking foreign policy in a new direction, he’s got all the information to make good decisions and, by the way, that all of government is moving at the same time and singing from the same hymnal.”

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Trump later reposted the tweet, correcting the spelling of "unprecedented."

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, tweeted Saturday: "This is madness. A 7:30am Saturday escalation of diplomatic crisis w China via Twitter, w misspelling."

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement Friday: “The Chinese Navy’s seizure of a U.S. unmanned oceanographic vessel in international waters is a flagrant violation of the freedom of the seas. China had no right to seize this vehicle. And the United States must not stand for such outrageous conduct."