The Trump golden statue everyone is talking about was made in Mexico

Artist succeeded in getting into CPAC without any credentials as tickets were sold out, while pulling along massive statue

The golden statue of former president Donald Trump, which grabbed a lot of people's attention at CPAC, was made in Mexico.

Artist and American ex-pat Tommy Zegan travelled with the sculpture from Rosarito, just south of Tijuana close to the US border, to CPAC in Florida.

Politico reported that Mr Zegan crafted the statue, which weighs more than 200lbs, over six months with the help of three others. He then took it to Tampa, Florida where it was painted in chrome, and from there he drove it to CPAC in Orlando in a U-Haul truck.

He succeeded in getting into the conference without any credentials as tickets were sold out while pulling along the massive statue, which is made of fibreglass.

Mr Zegan told Politico: “If someone offered me $100,000 I’d take it."

Mr Zegan made another version of the statue in stainless steel, costing about $50,000. He's hoping to sell it for more than $1m. If he's unsuccessful, he wants it to be in a possible Trump Presidential Library.

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He told Politico that Mr Trump's executive assistant Rhona Graff is "trying to get me in with the right people".

Mr Zegan added that he tried to get into Mar-A-Lago last year on Mr Trump's birthday to present the original sculpture to him but he failed to get past security.

He told Politico: “I was not a big Trump supporter when he ran. I mean I voted for him because I wasn’t going to vote for Hillary. So I voted for him, but I didn’t really care for him. I used to watch ‘The Apprentice’ but I would turn it off halfway. I thought, ‘This is stupid.’”

The statue was placed in the exhibit hall of the Hyatt Regency hotel in Orlando where the conference is being hosted. Mr Trump is expected to speak at the conference on Sunday. According to CNN, it ended up in the booth of a conservative nonprofit called Look Ahead America.

Mr Zegan told CNN that he created the statue in response to other artworks mocking the 45th president.

He said: "Two years ago when I saw all those statues of naked Trump and Trump on a toilet, I said, 'You know what? I can do better’."

Mr Zegan said that the steel version is being stored in Tampa.

"It is museum-quality, and that's the one I'm eventually hoping to get in the Trump library. It is literally priceless," he said.

The statue depicts Mr Trump wearing a suit jacket and tie, shorts in the style of the American flag and flip flops.

Mr Zegan added: "The coat and tie is the fact that he's a professional, he's a businessman. The red tie symbolizes he's a Republican. The red white and blue is that he's a patriot. The fact that he's wearing thongs and shorts is that he's at the age where he should be retired. He should be at the beach right now."

But when asked if he wanted Mr Trump to run in 2024, Mr Zegan told CNN that he would be "ecstatic".

"If he wants it to happen, it will happen," he said.