Letters from an American - Trump's China Trip

Episode Date: May 16, 2026

Xi Jinping appears to have gotten what he wanted from the meeting with Trump, Trump’s actions make it appear China and the US are peers. Xi signals he sees US as a declining power, Trump appears to miss the context of their meeting, Trump misses the point that America’s strength was always about its alliances, Trump posts about the WH ballroom, Hegseth reverses plan to send troops to Poland, Chairs of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees are angry about changing plans and the administration’s failure to involve them, Corruption in Trump family finances continuew unabated.Watch today's recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/g9TUa1Rwd6U?si=T8_KKcHQZElhpnZ-Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribeYou can also find me:Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

May 15, 26. President Donald J. Trump arrived back in the United States of America today after a three-day state visit to China. Isaac Arnsdorf, Michael Burnbaum, and Michelle Yi He Lee of the Washington Post, note that the summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping yielded exactly what Xi aimed to achieve with the visit. Its pageantry and Trump's gestures of friendship and admiration showed the U.S. and China as peers, something previous U.S. leaders have rejected. In an interview with Fox News Channel personality, Sean Hannity, that aired today, Trump said, It's the two great countries. I call it the G2. This is the G2. I think it'll go down as a very

important moment in history. Former China director on the National Security Council, Julian Giverts, who served under President Joe Biden, told the Washington Post reporters, Xi has done something Chinese leaders have been working toward for decades, bringing an American president to Beijing as an undisputed peer. She used the opulent optics of the visit to make clear to the world that China and the United States are the two dominant, equally matched superpowers. There is no going back. She has said before, he thinks the east is rising and the west declining. Referring to that idea Thursday, before the two leaders met in Beijing, Xi made it clear he sees the U.S. as a declining power and pondered,

can China and the United Nations overcome the Thucydides Trap and create a new paradigm of major country relations? The Thucydides trap is a theory put forward by Harvard political scientist Graham Allison that when a rising power threatens to replace an existing power. The conflict between the two tends to spark a war. As if to illustrate that the U.S. is a declining power, the Chinese media downplayed the importance of a visit from a U.S. president. As James Palmer of foreign policy noted, on the day Trump arrived, the main story on the front page of the state-run English-language newspaper, China Daily, was the visit

of the president of Tajikistan the day before. The Chinese Communist Communist Party newspaper featured Trump's visit on page three. Trump seemed to miss the larger context of the honors he so clearly enjoyed, telling the Fox News Channel's Brett Baer that the summit was a success and that the most significant win for the United States was relationship. It's all about relationship. I have a very good relationship with President Xi and with China. And it sounds like something that doesn't mean anything, but it's everything in deal-making

and problems we've solved. The two of us have solved a lot of problems between that somebody else would have maybe done very badly with. We've solved a lot of problems over the years. Tamara Keith and Jennifer Pack of NPR noted that she did not return Trump's personal praise, speaking instead about relations between the U.S. and China. Keith and Pack also reported that Trump boasted the visit had produced some fantastic, trade deals, good for both countries, and told Sean Hannity of the Fox News Channel that China had agreed to buy soybeans and Boeing aircraft before adding, I sort of, I think it was a commitment. I mean, you know, it was sort of like a statement, but I think it was a commitment. It's a great

thing. It's a lot of jobs. China has not commented on any promised purchases. It did warn that if the U.S. mishandles the question of Taiwan, a self-governing island Beijing claims, it could put the entire relationship between the U.S. and China in jeopardy and that the most important issue in China-U.S. relations is Taiwan. The U.S. did not mention Taiwan in its own readout of the meeting. Trump had stayed quiet on social media while in China, but once he left the country, he had things to say. Somebody must have explained the meaning of she's Thucydides' trap comment, but rather than taking offense, Trump on May 14th said she was referring to the tremendous damage we suffered during the four years of sleepy Joe Biden and the Biden administration, and on that score,

he was 100% correct. Our country suffered immeasurably with open borders, high taxes, transgender for everybody, men and women's sports. DEI, horrible trade deals, rampant crime, and so much more. President Xi was not referring to the incredible rise that the United States has displayed to the world during the 16 spectacular months of the Trump administration, which includes all-time high stock markets and 401ks, military victory and thriving relationship in Venezuela, the military decimation of Iran, to be continued, strongest, military on earth by far, economic powerhouse again, with a record $18 trillion being invested

into the United States by others, best U.S. job market in history, with more people working in the United States right now than ever before, ending country destroying DEI, and so many other things that it would be impossible to readily list. In fact, President Shee congratulated me on so many tremendous successes in such a short period of time. Two years ago, we were, in fact, a nation in decline. On that, I fully agree with President Xi. But now the United States is the hottest nation anywhere in the world, and hopefully our relationship with China will be stronger and better than ever before. At 452 this morning, Trump turned back to his plans for remodeling Washington, D.C. He announced that he intends to put his National Garden of American Heroes in West Potomac Park,

then after claiming that the people playing golf at his Doral Club are absolutely in love with, the 22-foot gold statue of him recently installed there, posted above a picture of himself walking with Xi. China has a ballroom, and so should the USA. It's under construction ahead of schedule and will be the final. facility of its kind anywhere in the USA. Thank you for all the support I have been given in getting this project going. Scheduled opening will be around September of 2028.

The man I am walking with is President Xi of China, one of the world's great leaders, President Donald J. Trump. Trump appears desperate to be included as an equal in the world of strongmen, apparently not understanding that America's strength was always about its alliances. its alliances. Yesterday, members of Congress and Pentagon officials both were blindsided by the sudden decision by Defense Secretary Pete Hegesith to cancel the deployment of 4,000 troops to Poland,

after the troops were already on their way and much of the necessary equipment was already in Poland. Poland is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, ally. The U.S. troops were going there as part of a nine-month rotation in which they would have trained with NATO allies. Congress has tried to beef up the U.S. presence in Europe, warning that reductions would invite Russian aggression. Last year, it passed a law limiting the number of troops Trump could withdraw from Europe and the circumstances under which he could do so. Former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, told Paul McLeary and Jack Dech of Politico that the Army's role in Europe

is all about deterring the Russians, protecting America's strategic interests and assuring allies, and now a very important asset that was coming to be part of that deterrence is gone. Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat of Arizona, posted, once again, the president and Pete Hagseth

show that they are not committed to security in Europe. Actions like this make us less safe and emboldened Russia's president Vladimir Putin. At every turn, the two of them cower to Russia. European allies have worried for years now about Russian aggression. A signal that the U.S. is losing interest in NATO allies heightens that concern, especially coming, as it does, less than two weeks after Hegseth announced, the U.S. will withdraw 5,000 troops from military. military bases in Germany, following German Chancellor Frederick Mears' criticism of Trump's

handling of his war on Iran. Today, Connor O'Brien of Politico reported that the Republican chairs of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees were surprised and angry at the news that Hegseth was recalling the troops from their deployment in Poland. At a hearing with Army officials, who said they had only been informed of the decision days ago, House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers, a Republican of Alabama, said, we don't know what's going on here, but I can just tell you we're not happy with what's being talked about, particularly since there's been no statutory consultation with us.

Committee member Don Bacon, a Republican of Nebraska, said the canceled deployment is a slap in the face to Poland, it's a slap in the face to our Baltic friends, it's a slap to the the face of this committee. But Trump seems more interested in acting like an autocrat than in consulting Congress, a body that his ally Steve Bannon has compared to the Duma, the Russian Assembly that does what Putin tells it to. In addition to the extraordinary corruption already public, Bill Allison and Jess Menton of Bloomberg reported yesterday that a new financial filing shows that in the first quarter of 2026, Trump or his investment advisors

made more than 3,700 trades, over 40 a day, totaling tens of millions of dollars and involving major companies that have dealings with his administration. Allison and Menton note that Trump did not move his assets into a blind trust with an independent manager,

as his predecessors did if they traded in stocks at all. Former Presidents Biden and Barack Obama did not trade stocks. Instead, his sons, Don Jr. and Eric managed the business as it operates in areas that are directly related to government policies decided by Trump himself. Trump invested in major companies with business affected by what he decided to do, including Invidia, Intel Corp, Netflix, Paramount Skydance, Warner Brothers Discovery, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon. Wall Street executives told the journalists

they were baffled by the high volume of trades and concerned about the appearance of conflicts of interest. All of this raises questions that you'd rather not raise as a president, wealth manager Matthew Tuttle told the reporters. So now people are asking, why is he buying Nvidia and other companies now? When you're the president, you know everything,

so any stock you buy. is a huge question mark. White House spokesperson David Engel told the reporters that Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public and that there are no conflicts of interest. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson.

It was produced at Soundscape Productions, dead in Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss. Please.