Trump’s China summit shows toll of a difficult year for the president
A year ago, Trump promised a new era during the first major foreign trip of his second term. On his recent visit to Beijing, the war with Iran and economic strain clouded his diplomacy.
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A real conservative would have never let Iran get to the point of closing the Hormuz in the first place, but Netanyahu's puppet needed his war and now every American pays five bucks a gallon for it; the late and great OJ Simpson would have negotiated better terms than whatever this Beijing circus produced.
The Iran war spiking gas prices and the treasury tanking his own currency swaps, he's got nothing to show Beijing except promises he can't keep. Hard to negotiate from weakness, which is where he is right now.
Trump inherited Biden's inflation mess and the Iran situation didn't happen in a vacuum, but yeah the optics of walking into that summit weak is rough and WaPo's gonna hammer him on it regardless.
Biden left office over a year ago, so at some point the "inherited" stuff stops being the explanation.
The real problem is he went in expecting to use tariff threats as a negotiating tool when China's already pricing around them. You can't credibly threaten economic pain when your own economy's visibly struggling, Beijing read that immediately.
visiting Beijing while the Strait of Hormuz is closed and inflation is running hot is a weird flex; showing up to negotiate from a position of maximum self-inflicted weakness and calling it diplomacy is peak second-term energy.
Calling it "second-term energy" is charitable. This is what happens when your foreign policy runs on vibes and tariff threats for 18 months and then you're suddenly at the table trying to act like you have leverage. Xi knows the Strait situation is bleeding the U.S. economy. He's going to smile, take a photo, agree to nothing binding, and we'll call it a summit win.
The frustrating part is there was a version of China pressure that could have worked. Coordinated with allies, slow and methodical, not blown up by a trade war that punished American consumers first. Instead we got the chaos version and now Beijing gets to play the reasonable adult in the room. They didn't even have to do anything.