Donald Trump flew to Beijing last week and bent his wobbly knee to Xi Jinping, a man who runs a surveillance state, disappears dissidents, and has made no secret of his desire to absorb Taiwan by force.
Trump came home with nothing. No agreements. No concessions. No trade framework. Not a single thing to show for the trip except a declaration that it was an “honor” to be Xi Jinping’s friend.
Xi played Trump for the fool he is. And Putin, arriving in Beijing this week, will raise a glass right alongside Xi, a celebratory toast to Greenland and a galoot.
To think about what these two men say about Trump behind closed doors? Well, to say you'd love to be a fly on the wall when that happens would be an understatement.
The two most dangerous autocrats on the planet have undoubtedly and assuredly reached a conclusion, and they’ve reached it with considerable authority, that the American president is a useful idiot. Not an adversary. Not even a detour.
He is a gift from heaven that keeps on giving, and for the next two years, that should terrify the hell out of everyone who is paying attention.
Xi wants Taiwan. In a weekend interview that received nowhere near enough attention, Trump essentially shrugged at the island’s fate, breaking with decades of bipartisan American commitment to its defense. There is no question that Trump now most likely considers it ok if Xi invades Taiwan.
And Xi heard that loud and clear. The question was never whether China had the ambition to take Taiwan. The question was always whether the cost would be too high. Trump just answered it. And Taiwanese are no doubt alarmed at Trump’s capitulation.
Putin wants Eastern Europe. Trump pulled U.S. troops out of Poland and Germany, the very bulwark that has kept Russian tanks from rolling west since the Cold War ended. Putin is salivating. That’s too understated. He’s foaming at the mouth. He’s been running his Ukraine war with reckless abandon, and Trump just told him don’t let the U.S. stand in your way.
Last week, Russia launched the largest drone attack on Kyiv since the war started.
Ukraine is the test case, and it tells you everything. Analysts largely agree that Ukraine has been punching well above its weight, degrading Russian military capability at relatively low cost to the West. But Trump has convinced himself, and is working detestably hard to convince the rest of us, that Ukraine is losing and should simply accept Putin’s terms.
He is parroting Putin’s framing of the war, and he always has been. Trump doesn’t assess through analysis. He assesses through admiration.
And now Xi is getting that same admiration over Taiwan.
Unlike the doofus and shortsighted Trump, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin think in terms of decades and spheres of influence. They are students of history, and they are watching American power abdicate, putting a gleam in their eyes.
Trump isn’t just giving them an opening, he’s alarmingly laying out a welcome mat and asking them to fire away at what remains of the post-World War II order. It’s hard to fathom that one singularly stupid person can demolish what took decades to accomplish
Meanwhile, Trump is laser-focused on Greenland. On Monday, as the U.S. envoy arrived in the country, the administration began demanding a major operational role in running the island. Trump genuinely believes a continent-sized Arctic landmass, or as he calls it “a piece of ice,” is the geopolitical prize of the century.
Xi and Putin are doubling over with laughter. Trump covets ice, and they crawl over their borders.
In Trump’s deluded thinking, he’s playing the same game these men are playing. He thinks he can invade just like they do — read Iran. He thinks flattery is diplomacy — that will be the second, gleeful toast by Xi and Putin, i.e. what a schmuck.
He thinks calling Xi his “friend” and Putin a strong leader earns him their respect, restraint, and a favorable deal somewhere down the road. Those are Xi and Putin’s third, fourth and fifth toasts. It will be a long night.
Xi and Putin are giggling over their U.S. counterpart who genuinely believes strongmen can be his friends. They will high-five over how pliable their 79-year old American “partner” is. They will sketch out what’s now possible in a world where the United States president publicly shrugs at Taiwan and pulls troops from NATO’s eastern flank in the same month he threatens to annex an ally’s territory.
The Cold War ended because the West held together to stop expansionism. What Trump is doing, with stunning speed and imbecility, is making broken borders the new reality. The predictive bet of Xi moving on Taiwan and Putin pushing into Eastern Europe has shifted dramatically in the past four months.
Safe to say, that in the coming months, the world will be less safer than it is right now.
While Xi and Putin are marching toward domination. Trump is obsessing over Greenland. And world order is on the brink of catastrophe.