During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump never passed up an opportunity to slam China, saying the trade imbalance between the two nations was a disgrace and vowing to rectify the situation if elected.
And yet, on his first state visit to China this week, Trump has wound up sounding like a smitten fanboy, making excuses for the Chinese and buddying up to President Xi Jinping.
At a press conference Thursday in Beijing, Trump laid the flattery on thick and often, even going to so far as to say he doesn’t blame the Chinese for unfair trading practices:
“Who can blame a country for being able taking advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens?”
Instead of blaming China, Trump tossed previous American heads of state under the bus:
“I give China great credit. In actuality, I do blame past administrations for allowing this trade deficit to take place and grow.”
What Trump conveniently neglected to mention is that in September, the trade deficit grew substantially, all under his leadership. As Politico reported:
“The trade gap, which measures the difference between imports and exports, increased 1.7 percent in September to $43.5 billion. The deficit for the first 9 months of the year totaled $405.2 billion, compared to $370.7 billion during the same period in 2016.”
Afterwards, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson echoed Trump’s remarks and refused to blame the Chinese for trade inequality:
“I think what the President was just reflecting on is, look, we are where we are because of previous administrations, whether through benign neglect — which is my own characterization of it — or for whatever reasons allowed this to happen.”
And yet, while campaigning for the GOP nomination, Trump remarked:
“We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country and that’s what they’re doing. It’s the greatest theft in the history of the world.
You can win against China if you’re smart. But our people don’t have a clue. We give state dinners to the heads of China. I said why are you doing state dinners for them? They’re ripping us left and right. Just take them to McDonald’s and go back to the negotiating table.”
Trump had an opulent state dinner with Xi Wednesday evening. He later described it as “absolutely terrific.”
Guess they served him a Big Mac and told him he was a genius. And of course our vain man-child of a leader believed every damn word of it.
Featured Image Via CBC
