Why Biographer Blasts Donald Trump's China Trip as 'an Embarrassment' and a Total Win for Xi Jinping

China Trip Meets Central Campaign Promise

The news came after a two-day summit in Beijing that saw China's leadership stage an elaborate welcome for Trump and his team. On Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted the US delegation, which included Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a ceremony that felt closer to a state pageant than a tense geopolitical showdown.

According to reports, the group was greeted by upbeat dancers, escorted through a sprawling leadership compound and treated to an expansive military display. The optics were clear: China as a confident, unified power, comfortable enough in its position to roll out an unmistakably imperial red carpet.

This is precisely what makes the trip so sensitive for Trump. Wolff told Daily Beast executive editor Hugh Dougherty, in a new episode of Inside Trump's Head, that China was not just another foreign-policy file but 'the point of Trump's political enterprise.' It was, he argued, the through-line of Trump's 2016 campaign and his governing narrative since, framed as the explanation for 'all of the problems in America.'

Against that backdrop, Trump has tried to frame the Beijing visit as evidence that he has rebalanced the relationship. The White House released a tightly cut, one-minute video of Chinese military formations and flyovers with the caption: 'American strength back on the world stage.'

The reaction online was unforgiving. Commenters immediately noted that the footage did not, in fact, show American strength at all. It was a montage of Chinese power, choreographed by Beijing and gratefully posted by Washington.

Even by the flexible standards of political spin, that is an unusual way of claiming victory.

The Struggle to Claim a China Win

Wolff, who has spent years reporting on Trump, casts this performance as entirely in character. Trump's long-promised 'No More Mr Nice Guy' posture towards Beijing, he suggested, has abruptly given way to something closer to flattery.

'It's interesting that he can go from pure confrontation to pure sucking up,' Wolff said. In his view, the actual strategic goals of the trip are almost beside the point. What matters to Trump is the ability to emerge and declare, once again, that he has won.

That instinct was on display in Trump's own account of his relationship with Xi. Speaking later to Fox News, Trump said: 'Well, we have a relationship, he and I, and we've been working together a long time. We've gotten along well.' He went on to claim that when he first arrived, 'China was really taking advantage of the United States,' before insisting that now 'we do great with China, and we have a very good relationship.'

There is a certain circularity here. Trump insists China once exploited the US, asserts he has fixed it and invites voters to take that on trust. Wolff, for his part, points to the sheer scale of Chinese gains in the intervening years as evidence that this is more assertion than achievement.

At the same time, Wolff is not arguing that Trump is oblivious. On the contrary, he suggests Trump is acutely aware of how the visit may look once the pageantry fades.

'I think he probably does understand, 'Man, these Chinese, this has been a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. We're really kind of screwed here. So how do I look—me personally—look less screwed?'' Wolff said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wolff's remarks or on the criticism of its social media video.

'Side Deals Galore' After Trump's China Trip

If Trump cannot credibly claim to have reshaped the US–China balance of power, what can he take home from Beijing? Wolff's answer is unsentimental. In his telling, the Trump world instinct is to hunt for commercial opportunities that can be sold as wins, even if the broader strategic ledger looks grim.

'It's always "Look, what's the silver lining here?" and what's the silver lining is always how much money can we make off of this,' Wolff said. 'You know, life is a transaction. How do we get something? Even if the overall deal is not looking good, maybe there's side deals we can get. And I think that we're going to see likely side deals galore.'

One such deal has already been put on the table. On Friday, Trump announced that aircraft manufacturer Boeing will sell 200 planes to China, described as its first major sale to the country in nearly a decade, following the summit. Boeing said in a statement: 'We had a very successful trip to China and accomplished our major goal of reopening the China market to orders for Boeing aircraft.'

For Boeing, it is a clear commercial breakthrough. For Trump, it is a tangible, countable outcome to brandish when critics talk about choreography and symbolism.

Whether that is enough to offset the impression of a visit that showcased Chinese strength, while the US president reposted the footage as proof of his own, is another question. For now, Wolff's verdict is blunt: a China trip that was supposed to vindicate Trump's long crusade has, in his view, only underlined how far that crusade has fallen short.

Originally published on IBTimes UK