Trump’s summit with China’s Xi Jinping was a perfect metaphor for the entire Trump presidency: no strategic goals or coherent plans, and a clear win for America’s main global adversary. There was zero progress on the real issues in the fraught US-China relationship, which would be a challenge even for a competent president.
Instead, the pageantry suggested a declining power fawning in the face of a rising one. Trump greeted Xi on the tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base with a literal red carpet, a rare gesture even for close allies and never for adversaries. (The last time was in 1962, when President Kennedy greeted British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan.) Trump’s happiest narcissistic moment seemed to be when he showed the Chinese dictator his new gallery of past presidents, with an auto-pen standing in for Joe Biden, and got a laugh out of Xi.
Among the issues not addressed:
- The simmering trade war between the two superpowers
- Managing the race to dominate AI and the risks
- China’s aid to Iran
- China’s escalating threats to Taiwan
- China’s predatory trade and industrial policies
Instead, Xi was able to dominate both the optics of the event and the substance. China’s aid to Iran was never even discussed. On trade, a temporary patch extended the current partial pause in the trade war only until January.
On the question of AI, Xi brushed off concerns, saying that, “We have both the capability and responsibility to develop and manage AI for good and ensure that the development of AI is always under human control and serves the well-being of the people.” Trump did not press the point because he thinks the US can win what he regards as an AI arms race for supremacy.
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On the crucial case of Taiwan, according to China’s official news agency, Xinhua, in a private meeting Xi warned Trump to “adhere to the correct position of opposing ‘Taiwan independence.’” Trump, meanwhile, has yet to approve $14 billion dollars in promised military aid to Taiwan, despite pressure from congressional Republicans and Democrats. At one point in the meetings, U.S. ambassador to China David Perdue told Fox News on Sunday, Trump asked Xi if he would like to buy some arms from the U.S.
In one respect, Trump behaved like a useful idiot. On the eve of an election, Trump has thoroughly split his base.
Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, went to the Senate floor to remind Trump that “his guest is a brutal, unelected, and oppressive dictator who seeks to dominate his neighbors and whose massive military arsenal is aimed directly at the United States of America.”
“I think president Xi is a reptile,” said Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana. “I’ve met President Xi … This man thinks he’s on a mission from God except his god is himself.”
Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina called the visit “a WTF moment.” Tillis said Trump’s performance destroys GOP messaging branding Democrats as communists. “The president campaigned on an anti-China policy,” Tillis said. “You go look at those MAGA rallies and look at everybody cheering when he said he’s going to take it to China.
Mitch McConnell and three other Republican senators sent Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio a letter, quoting earlier White House strong support for Taiwan. The senators strenuously protested Trump’s withholding of $1.3 billion in congressionally approved security assistance and $14 billion in arms sales to Taiwan because he wants to use the money as a “negotiating chip” with Beijing.
Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, who chairs the House Select Committee on China, sent Trump a letter before the summit calling China America’s “foremost foreign adversary and greatest external threat” and urged tighter restrictions on China’s access to American AI and semiconductor technology.
Trump, apparently not trusting himself to hold the usual press conference with Xi, settled for a photo session instead. Groping for some triumph, he took Xi on a tour of his new White House helipad and remarked that Xi “is an expert on stone, aside from many other things, and he loves good granite.”
Just to continue the VIP welcome summit parade for dictators, Trump has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the Miami G-20 Summit being held at the Trump Doral Golf Club in December. In a bipartisan letter, 14 senators strenuously objected and urged Trump to withdraw the invitation. Xi will also attend.
On Sunday, after the summit ended, the two nations announced token tariff reductions in $60 billion worth of non-sensitive goods, out of $496 billion in total annual trade.
Not to leave Trump empty handed, Xi confirmed that the Atlanta zoo would be getting two Chinese giant pandas, named Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, but as a loan, not a gift. It’s worthy of a T-shirt: China got global hegemony and all I got were these two lousy pandas.
