Trump used to slam China. Here’s why he’s now rolling out the red carpet for Xi

Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, shakes hands with President Donald Trump at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, May 14, 2026 [AP Photo]

When President Donald Trump first ran for office, he called out China as a menace to the U.S. economy, saying it had gutted America’s factories and eroded the middle class.

That tough talk helped Trump get to the White House a decade ago, but since then, he increasingly speaks in glowing terms about Chinese President Xi Jinping, the geopolitical rival Trump will fete on Thursday with a state dinner.

“He’s a great gentleman; we get along great,” Trump said this month. “We have a very good trading relationship and, you know, they’re a competitor and all of that, but we have a very good relationship with President Xi.”

On issue after issue, the Republican president has given Xi a pass.

Trump shrugged off reports that China had provided Iran with satellite imagery, saying, “I think he’s behaved reasonably well.” After accusing Beijing of accessing U.S. voter files back in 2020, Trump indicated he was hesitant to retaliate: “I think China is maybe a little bit different today than it was then.”

Trump’s magnanimity comes as China and the United States are in a contest for global leadership, with some of America’s traditional allies rethinking their strategies. China has expanded its dominance in manufacturing and pushed into new technologies such as artificial intelligence and electric vehicles that create risks for the economies of the U.S., Germany, Italy, France, South Korea and Japan, among others.

Trump tried to confront China with tariffs, but that backfired

Unable to change Chinese behavior, Trump has resorted to hospitality.

He traveled to Beijing in May, and the two leaders could meet again two more times this year at international summits. Trump has readied a helipad on the White House South Lawn before Xi’s arrival and has lamented that his ballroom will not be ready to host the Chinese leader.

Trump has insisted that the U.S. is comfortably ahead of China, but his efforts last year to confront China with a mounting set of tariffs backfired. China holds a relative monopoly on the rare earths used in electronics and deployed that to help force a trade armistice with Trump.

“Trump has dramatically shifted his approach to China because his initial attempt to use super-high tariffs and export restrictions was unsuccessful,” said Michael Kovrig, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group. “Xi and Trump got into a contest of leverage, and Xi came out on top.”

Meanwhile, Trump has largely undermined the economic and national security alliances that could previously apply pressure on China, said Kovrig, a former Canadian diplomat who was detained by China during Trump’s first term.

Trump has mocked French President Emmanuel Macron in speeches. He has run hot and cold on NATO after several of its members did not fully support his choice to start a war with Iran. Trump has launched a potentially brutal trade fight with Canada, a longtime ally he has trolled as becoming the 51st American state.

“He’s executing Xi’s wedge tactics for him, and along the way, helping Xi to tell a story about China as the more stable and responsible power,” Kovrig said. “It’s led to a wave of Western leaders visiting Beijing and seeking to stabilize and improve their relations with Xi so they can focus more on dealing with problems Trump is causing them.”

Trump’s relationship with Xi has led to some symbolic wins

Trump can point to some symbolic wins from having a pleasant relationship with Xi.

While Xi met three times on the sidelines of international summits with Democratic President Joe Biden, Trump will have achieved a pair of reciprocal state visits in a sign that the leaders of the world’s two largest economies feel comfortable speaking to each other.

The trade imbalance with China in goods has declined relative to the same period in 2025, according to Census Bureau figures, though the administration has noted that China appears to be routing more goods through other nations such as Vietnam to minimize the tariffs.

Trump’s continued tariffs on China have not curbed its manufacturing sector. China has found new markets and boxed out competition from other industrialized countries. China is exporting more of its goods to the rest of the world with a $1.2 trillion global trade surplus last year as its low-priced EVs undercut the auto sectors in Germany, Japan and South Korea.

It’s unclear whether Thursday’s visit will have a policy ‘deliverable’

Both China and the U.S. are using their trade truce to retrench. China is building up its military and AI capabilities despite limited access to advanced computer chips. The Trump administration has pursued partnerships to develop rare earths.

Trump is also banking on America going full throttle on AI development despite voter resistance to data centers and recent alarming safety warnings from the leading AI companies. He said this week on social media that anyone slowing down AI development was helping China because the technology will be “the Greatest Economic Development Engine in History — Bigger than Oil, Gold, Diamonds, or even the Internet.”

But China has also been accused of having its AI companies train on U.S. models, a problem for Trump and the economy if AI is the key to global dominance.

Still, Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters at the White House last week that it’s “unfair to just label China as a country” as being a “bad actor” on AI.

Asked if Trump would bring up the issue with Xi, Blanche said, “Those two presidents have a great relationship. … They get along, they make deals together.”

Usually, state visits come with “deliverables” on policy or trade. It’s not yet clear what Thursday’s visit will bring, and it’s possible that the main deliverable will be the relationship itself, rather than clear and measurable goals, said Evan Medeiros, a professor at Georgetown University.

That means the U.S. might not be positioning itself to compete against China as it should be, said Medeiros, a former National Security Council director on China for the Obama White House.

“We have this idiosyncratic president who believes in personal relationships and just wants to get along with Xi Jinping for the optics of getting along with him,” Medeiros said. “The problem is that this idiosyncratic approach is coming at precisely the time when we really need to be amping up all dimensions of our competition.” JOSH BOAK, WASHINGTON, MDT/AP