As President Donald Trump’s summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping comes to its end, some Republicans aren’t happy with the red carpet treatment the face of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) received.
“Quite frankly, had the White House asked me for advice, I would have suggested the president not invite Xi Jinping to Washington for such a lavish welcome here in the United States of America, based on all of the troubling issues we have with President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party,” Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said.
Wicker, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, has been one of the more vocal Republicans about his disdain for the meeting, which kicked off Wednesday afternoon when Trump met Xi at Joint Base Andrews — the first time a president has met with a foreign dignitary there since 2015.
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The White House argued in a statement to Fox News Digital that Trump was returning the sentiment to Jinping after his visit to Beijing earlier this year.
“President Xi hosted President Trump in China for a historic summit this summer, and President Trump is reciprocating his hospitality by welcoming the Chinese delegation for a reciprocal visit this week,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said. “The President will forge relationships with anyone in order to advance our national interests and make good deals for the American people.”
It comes as Republicans are running to hold onto power in the Senate. They departed their midterm convention in Dallas earlier this month with a rallying cry: “Common sense versus communism,” as progressive candidates surge across the country.
The convention was designed to remind voters that while his name is not on the ballot, Trump’s agenda is. But his meeting with Xi, optically, runs afoul of that.
“I mean, the president campaigned on an anti-China policy,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said. “You go look at those MAGA rallies and look at everybody cheering when he said he’s gonna take it to China.”
“Any time we roll out the red carpet for a despot from Russia, or a despot from China, I feel the same way,” he continued. “It’s kind of not good.”
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Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he was not “enthusiastic” about the summit, and said that China, Russia, Iran and North Korea were an “axis opposed” to the U.S.
“I hope the president’s clear-eyed about who he’s dealing with,” Cornyn told Fox News Digital. “I mean, he tends to call some of these dictators friends, and they’re no friend. I can guarantee.”
Some Republicans are willing to accept that a meeting between Trump and Xi is a necessary step in building a relationship between the two superpowers, even with the lavish nature of the summit.
“I think there’s value in being able to talk with your adversaries,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Fox News Digital. “And I think, in this case, you know, our two countries, the biggest economies in the world, have a symbiotic relationship.”
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., was invited to attend the dinner after spending years working in China before running for office.
Daines told Fox News Digital that he understood his colleagues’ apprehension, but that the U.S. and China, and particularly Trump and Xi’s relationship, had to work.
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“This relationship is too big to fail, and it’s only appropriate that President Trump and his team extends respect to Xi Jinping, and it’s really reciprocal to what they did for President Trump back in May when they showed him great respect when he showed up in Beijing,” Daines said.
Still, that doesn’t mean Republicans have to like it.
“It is one of his strengths, his ability to sort of win individuals over with hospitality,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., told Fox News Digital. “He’s in the business. So I don’t, again, I’m not gonna second guess it. You know, I hate seeing it at a personal level, but I trust his instincts on it.”
Lawmakers hoped that the two-and-a-half-day summit would yield deals on the artificial intelligence (AI) race, trade deals that would end the trade war between the U.S. and China and for Xi to use his influence to get oil and natural gas flowing through the Strait of Hormuz again.
Trump kept tight-lipped about the nature of their bilateral meeting in the Oval Office on Thursday, but so far, Xi has promised two new pandas while the president is mulling allowing Chinese electric vehicles to be built in the U.S.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., took no issue with the meeting, but hoped that Trump would see through any smokescreen Xi deployed.
“I just suggested, and I don’t think he will — the president’s a pretty good judge of character — not to believe President Xi’s bulls—, because he’s lying. Particularly about helping Iran, and Xi could get the Strait open immediately if he wanted,” Kennedy told Fox News Digital.
