Donald Trump appeared both physically and metaphorically diminished beside Chinese President Xi Jinping as America’s stature seemed to shrink alongside him, one foreign policy analyst says.
David Rothkopf, appearing on The Daily Beast Podcast, said the 79-year-old president came away from his visit to China “deeply frustrated.”
“Everywhere he goes, he’s getting twisted around his own axle,” Rothkopf, the Daily Beast’s Chief Global Affairs Columnist, told co-host Hugh Dougherty. Trump, for instance, made a sudden reversal on his pledge to prevent Chinese nationals from buying American farmland.
“I think he’s a deeply frustrated man right now, because for most of his life, he’s been able to talk his way out of his problems, and right now… they’re piling up and piling up, and he’s just lost that old magic.”
“He’s always been able to talk his way out of whatever his screw-ups are, right? Or have his lawyers talk his way out of it. He doesn’t know how to get out of this Iran thing. And the issue in the Strait of Hormuz is a problem,” Rothkopf continued, pointing out that Trump’s pleas for help to European allies have been largely met with silence.
“He realizes that the biggest power—because they’re getting some of their oil through the Strait—is China. But China has been very clear, you know: China vetoed at the U.N. resolution, calling for collective action to reopen the strait. And China has actually been supplying components of arms to the Iranians to help them sustain themselves,” Rothkopf added.
Rothkopf said Trump tried to spin that part of his interaction with Xi.
“Trump said, ‘Would you not supply them with arms?’ And he then said Xi promised he wouldn’t. But the Chinese didn’t actually say that,” Rothkopf said.
“So here he was, kowtowing to a guy who is actually actively helping the enemy in this Iran war and helping them in ways that could actually lead to casualties to U.S. troops and sailors. And that doesn’t give Trump any pause, and [Xi] didn’t agree to help with the strait. So he got nothing… In addition to that, he looked impotent, right? He looked weak.”
Trump’s appearance, Rothkopf said, wasn’t as authoritative this time around.
“In his prior visits, Trump was tall. In fact, Trump sells himself as being 6′3″,” he said. “But Xi Jinping is 5′11″. And Trump standing next to him is the same size.”
Trump even commented to Fox News that Xi was “especially tall for this country.”
“The subtext of this meeting was America losing stature and the image that goes along with that is the president losing stature,” Rothkopf said. “He is looking smaller and smaller relative to the president of China in every way possible, you know—optically, but also metaphorically.”
When reached for comment, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said in a statement: “David Rothkopf plays pretend as a foreign policy expert, but in reality he’s just a loser who is jealous of President Trump and the rest of the Administration. We do consequential work, while he sobs in front of the computer screen with an empty tissue box to catch his tears of sorrow.”
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