COLUMN: Trump Collects Trips to Xi Like Others Accumulate Trophies

Introduction: The President Who Can’t Help Returning to Beijing

An Announcement Made from the Sidelines of a Plane Gifted by Qatar

On June 19, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, Donald Trump unveiled his new diplomatic toy: a Boeing 747 gifted by Qatar, renamed the flying White House. The stage was set. And then, almost in passing, the President of the United States dropped a piece of information that should have triggered a major debate in the West. He’s heading back to China. Again. Trump specified the nature of the trip with this characteristic phrase: « we're going back for a big conference that's in China », likely referring to the APEC summit scheduled for November 18 and 19 in Shenzhen.

It is not an absolute surprise. But hearing Trump announce a third or fourth trip to his primary strategic rival, the same week he’s touting Xi Jinping’s qualities in an Axios interview by calling him a « very smart man, no games, all business », deserves a pause. It actually deserves for us to sit down and think about what this diplomacy by whim says about the West in 2026.

The Mechanics of a Recurring Fascination

Trump is also headed to Turkey — for the NATO summit in Ankara on July 7 and 8, 2026. He confirmed that Xi Jinping will visit the United States on September 24 for a state visit, the first official visit by a Chinese leader to Washington in over a decade. This will be the third face-to-face meeting between the two men since Trump’s return to the White House. According to the South China Morning Post, Trump and Xi could meet up to four times in 2026, an unprecedented pace in Sino-American relations.

It’s all part of a sequence I personally find dizzying. Trump already conducted a state visit to Beijing in May 2026 — the first by an American president to China in nine years. He brought along Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Jensen Huang, Larry Fink, and a dozen CEOs of American capitalism. Xi served them a banquet at the Great Hall of the People. And now, Trump announces he’s going back. Because Xi asked him to. Because there’s a grande conférence.

The Quote That Sums It All Up: « no games, all business »

A Compliment That Reveals a Philosophy of Power

Let’s talk about that phrase. In his interview with Axios on June 20, 2026, Trump described Xi Jinping in these terms: « He's a very smart man. He's strong. He's no games. He won't sit down and say, 'Oh what a beautiful day,'… It's like all business, which I like. » This statement was picked up by several media outlets, including Moneycontrol. This isn’t a trivial remark. It’s a philosophical declaration about the type of leadership Trump admires and, by extension, the type he aspires to embody.

Trump isn’t saying he respects Xi’s institutions. He’s not saying he admires press freedom in China, political pluralism, minority protection, or Communist Party transparency. He’s saying he appreciates raw efficiency, directness, the lack of games. It’s a eulogy to functional autocracy dressed up as a diplomatic compliment. And it comes from the President of the United States, the self-proclaimed guardian of the Western liberal order.

The Pattern of Fascination with Strongmen

This isn’t new for Trump. We remember his recurring praise for Vladimir Poutine before the war in Ukraine complicated the rhetoric. We know his fondness for leaders who know how to command. Kim Jong-un had also received his Trumpian laurels. The constant: Trump admires those who concentrate power, who decide without having to negotiate with a Congress, a free press, or civil society. What he sees in Xi is a mirror of what a certain American right fantasies for itself.

This character trait is not without geopolitical consequence. When the American leader signals, even unintentionally, an admiration for the authoritarian model, he weakens the cohésion du camp occidental. He gives ammunition to regimes that doubt the sincerity of the United States regarding the defense of democracy. He hands Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran a free rhetorical weapon.

The Crazy Calendar: Four Trump-Xi Meetings in One Year

A Pace with No Recent Precedent

Let’s recap the facts as they’re taking shape. Octobre 2025: the first Trump-Xi one-on-one on the sidelines of the APEC summit in South Korea. Mai 2026: Trump’s state visit to Beijing, from the 13th to the 15th, with a ceremony at the Temple of Heaven, a state banquet, and nine hours of discussions on trade, Taiwan, and Iran. Septembre 2026: Xi Jinping in Washington for a state visit, the first since 2015. And potentially, novembre 2026: Trump in Shenzhen for APEC, which would make him the first sitting American president to step foot in China’s tech capital.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent predicted back in November 2025 that Trump and Xi could see each other four times in 2026. At the time, it seemed ambitious. Today, it’s on the verge of becoming reality. And this, let’s remember, is in a context where China remains the principale menace stratégique pour l'Occident, where technological, military, and commercial competition between Washington and Beijing has never been more intense.

What This Pace Means Concretely for Allies

Some analysts will say these meetings are positive. That diplomacy is better than silence. That talking to your rival is preferable to direct confrontation. This isn’t false. But there’s a difference between maintaining a communication channel and turning your primary adversary into a partenaire privilégié de facto. What Trump is doing with Xi goes beyond strategic dialogue: it’s a pampered, maintained, and staged personal relationship.

Meanwhile, America’s traditional allies — l'Europe, le Japon, la Corée du Sud, l'Australie — are watching. They see their Atlantic guardian multiplying trips to the one they consider their common adversary. They wonder what this implies for Taiwan, for supply chains, for sanctions against Russia. They wonder if Washington is also speaking on their behalf at the Beijing table.

Turkey in the Equation: Another Strongman in the Travel Log

Ankara, NATO, and Erdoğan in the Background

Trump said it at the same time as his China announcement: « We'll be going to Turkey. » The destination is logical — the OTAN se tient à Ankara les 7 et 8 juillet 2026, confirmed by the official White House calendar. This will be a decisive summit for the Atlantic Alliance, in a context where the war in Ukraine continues, where European rearmament is accelerating, and where relations between Washington and its European allies remain tainted by the distrust Trump has sown since his return to power.

But Turkey is also Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Another strong leader. Another country halfway between the West and its adversaries. A NATO member that maintains trade relations with Russia, that sells drones to Ukraine while negotiating with Moscow. Trump has always had a soft spot for Erdoğan. And you can bet that the images of this meeting will be carefully orchestrated to project the same thing: two men who understand each other, who talk straight, who do business.

Travel as an Internal Political Communication Tool

We must not underestimate the domestic dimension of these announcements. Trump makes these statements at Joint Base Andrews, in front of the cameras, at the precise moment he’s presenting his new Air Force One gifted by Qatar — a gift that, in itself, raises considerable ethical questions, but let’s move on. This isn’t a coincidence. Trips abroad, especially to leaders whom the average American perceives as strong and serious, serve as a validation de puissance in the eyes of the Trumpist electorate.

In Trump’s political grammar, traveling to China is not an admission of weakness but a demonstration of diplomatic virility. I negotiate with the big guys, this body language says. Je suis le seul à pouvoir traiter avec Xi. The November 2026 midterms are looming, and every international trip is a page in the campaign narrative that Trump is continuously building, whether he’s officially campaigning or not.

Xi Jinping in Washington in September: The Visit That Changes the Symbolic Game

A Formal First in Over a Decade

The state visit of Xi Jinping à Washington le 24 septembre 2026 will be the first formal visit by a Chinese leader to the United States in over ten years — the last one dating back to 2015 sous Obama. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi confirmed it as early as May 15, 2026, shortly after Trump’s departure from Beijing. This announcement had been preceded by a public invitation from Trump during the state banquet: « It is my honor to extend an invitation to you, Madam Peng, to visit us at the White House this September 24. »

Symbolically, it’s considerable. Xi Jinping doesn’t travel much. He only heads to Washington when the power dynamic seems favorable to him, or at least balanced. The fact that he accepts this invitation says something about how Beijing now perceives the United States: no longer as an intransigent hegemon, but as a partner from whom one can profit, especially if the current president prefers trade deals over speeches on human rights.

What Beijing Really Wants to Get

China has its agenda. It’s clear and coherent: extend the trêve commerciale negotiated in South Korea in October 2025, secure rare earth supply chains, obtain a loosening of American restrictions on semi-conducteurs et l'intelligence artificielle, and ensure Trump continues to mute arms sales to Taïwan. During the May summit, Xi had warned Trump that Taiwan was the most important issue in Sino-American relations.

It is documented that Trump left Beijing without a major breakthrough on trade or a tangible commitment on Iran. According to the South China Morning Post, the two leaders displayed very different assessments of the summit, revealing tensions sous-jacentes sur l'Iran, le commerce et Taïwan. But Xi got the essential: symbolic recognition, the visit to Washington, and a Trump who talks about him as a man he sincerely likes.

The West Watches, Uncomfortable and Silent

Concerned Allies, Real Worries

This isn’t insignificant. While Trump multiplies trips to Beijing and invites Xi to the White House, Washington’s European allies remain in an uncomfortable diplomatic silence. They can’t criticize openly — Trump isn’t the type to appreciate lessons from his allies — but signs of concern exist. The accelerated European rearmament, discussions on autonomie stratégique, and investments in alternative supply chains to those passing through China: all of this translates into a fundamental distrust toward the current American partner.

L'Ukraine is watching with particular attention. Every rapprochement between Trump and Xi is potentially bad news for Kyiv. China economically supports Russia. It provides, according to many sources, dual-use components that fuel Moscow’s war effort. If Trump treats Xi as a privileged partner, the pressure on Beijing to stop this support for Poutine evaporates. And it’s Ukraine that pays the price.

The Dangerous Precedent This Diplomacy Creates

There’s something deeply problematic about the message this diplomacy sends. The idea that the leader of the West can go up to quatre fois en un an chez son adversaire principal, roll out the red carpet for him in Washington, and come back singing his praises creates a precedent. It tells the rest of the world that the American commitment to democratic values is negotiable, that human rights are an adjustment variable, that raw power and trade deals trump everything else.

This is the message that Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang are reading. And it’s the message that weakens the credibility of the West as a values-based bloc, at the very moment when this bloc needs it most to resist the global authoritarian push. Democracy isn’t a default option — it’s a fragile construction that requires active defense.

Presidential Caprice as an Assumed Diplomatic Method

Unpredictability Erected as Doctrine

Look at how these announcements were made. Trump talks about his trips to China and Turkey en marge d'une cérémonie pour un avion présidentiel. Not during a foreign policy briefing. Not after a National Security Council meeting. While presenting his new Boeing to reporters gathered at Andrews. This way of handling major diplomatic announcements as if they were trivial press briefings isn’t a communication accident — it’s a method.

Unpredictability is a arme tactique consciente in the Trumpian arsenal. It destabilizes allies as much as adversaries. It prevents bureaucracies, think tanks, and allied chancelleries from anticipating and preparing. It places Trump in the position of a gambler that no one can truly contain. It’s effective in the short term. It’s costly in the long term because trust in the American word erodes with every improvised announcement.

The Contrast with Beijing's Systemic Diplomacy

While Trump announces his trips in passing, Pékin prepares every visit with clockwork precision. Minister Wang Yi confirmed Xi’s state visit to the US in September within hours of Trump’s departure from Beijing, at the end of a meticulously organized press briefing. The Chinese had prepared the agenda, the symbols, the statements. They had thought about every image, every phrase, every signal sent to their regional and global partners.

This contrast between American improvisation and planification stratégique chinoise is one of the most significant fault lines of this diplomatic era. And it is not flattering for Washington. When one side is playing chess and the other is rolling dice, the result is often predictable — and not necessarily to the advantage of the one improvising.

Shenzhen in November: APEC and the Technological Symbol at Stake

A First for an American President in the Chinese Silicon Valley

If Trump indeed goes to Shenzhen for the APEC les 18 et 19 novembre 2026, he will become the premier président américain en exercice à visiter cette ville, the South China Morning Post points out. Shenzhen isn’t just any city. It’s the symbol of China’s rise in technological power. It’s where Huawei, Tencent, DJI were founded. It’s the city that best embodies Beijing’s ambition to dominate the technologies of the future: 5G, intelligence artificielle, robotique, semi-conducteurs.

Going there sends a message. Exactly which one is where interpretations diverge. For the optimists, it’s a sign of openness and pragmatism: the two economies are deeply intertwined, and it’s better to acknowledge that than to pretend otherwise. For the pessimists — and I count myself among them with nuance — it’s a symbolic legitimization of a statist and authoritarian technological model that poses a direct threat to suprématie technologique occidentale.

Arms Sales to Taiwan Held Hostage by Presidential Travels

The South China Morning Post also reports that American arms sales to Taïwan are likely to remain suspended in this context of multiplying trips and diplomatic warming. It’s a major concession, even if it’s never explicitly stated. The implications are considerable. Taiwan, a democratic island of 23 millions d'habitants, watches its primary protector reduce its defense guarantees so as not to spoil the atmosphere at upcoming dinners in Beijing.

This is the most concrete and serious dimension of this diplomacy by whim. Presidential trips aren’t just symbolic. They create implicit commitments. They build debts of courtesy. And in Trump’s logic, which values personal relationships with heads of state above all else, these debts are often repaid in monnaie géopolitique — at the expense of the most vulnerable allies.

China as an Existential Rival that Trump Chooses to Ignore Publicly

Facts That Disturb the Narrative of Warming

Let’s recall some realities that the atmosphere of banquets at the Great Hall of the People tends to make us forget. China is, according to the consensus of Western intelligence services, the principale menace à long terme pour l'ordre international libéral. It is carrying out the largest military buildup since World War II. It exerts coercive economic pressure on its neighbors. It brutally represses the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, in blatant violation of international human rights standards. It economically supports **Poutine**'s Russia, which daily bombs Ukrainian civilians.

This isn’t a list of abstract ideological grievances. These are documented, verifiable, ongoing state policies. And they don’t stop because Trump dined with Xi at the Temple of Heaven. They don’t stop because Xi Jinping accepted the White House invitation. Smile diplomacy doesn’t erase the underlying strategic reality.

The Strange Logic of Friendly Competition

The Trump administration has developed this concept of compétition sans confrontation with China. You fight over tariffs, technologies, markets, and spheres of influence — but you meet regularly, you invite each other, you exchange compliments in front of the cameras. It’s intellectually coherent if both sides are playing the same game. But China isn’t competing with the United States for a trade championship. It is competing for l'hégémonie mondiale.

Xi Jinping has said it himself, in veiled but clear terms, in each of his internal speeches on the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The Communist Party does not aim to be number two in an American world order. It aims to replace it. And it’s in this context that one must read every Trump trip to Beijing, every banquet, every announcement of a big conference.

What This Sequence Reveals About Trump's Foreign Policy in 2026

The Extreme Personalization of Diplomatic Power

Trump’s foreign policy in his second term is fundamentally a policy of relations personnelles au sommet. Everything goes through the heads of state themselves. Multilateral institutions are at best practical frameworks, at worst irritating constraints. What matters is what Trump and Xi said during dinner, what Trump and Erdoğan agreed on the sidelines of the NATO summit. This model has advantages: it’s fast, direct, and breaks through bureaucratic impasses.

Trump has obtained a partial trade deal with China, a promise to purchase 200 avions Boeing, and according to information from the South China Morning Post, a commitment from Beijing to buy at least 17 milliards de dollars in American agricultural products. These aren’t zero results. But they rely on verbal promises between two men, not on solid institutional mechanisms. And Xi Jinping’s verbal promises have whatever solidity one chooses to grant them.

The Vacuum Left by Values Diplomacy

What is absent from this entire sequence is any public mention of droits humains en Chine, the situation in Hong Kong, military tensions in the South China Sea, or Chinese support for Russia in the Ukraine war. In official summit readouts, these subjects sometimes appear in a footnote. But Trump doesn’t make them central, public, assumed themes. He leaves these inconveniences to the technicians and prefers to talk about beautiful relationships.

This absence isn’t a communication detail. It’s a massive strategic signal. It tells Beijing: you can continue. It tells human rights defenders around the world that Washington is no longer the primary guarantor of their causes. It tells Western allies — from Inde aux pays d'Europe centrale — that the principles of the Western camp have a price, and that price is negotiable.

The Midterms in the Background: Diplomacy as a Permanent Campaign Stage

November 2026 and the Urgency to Appear Strong

One cannot fully understand this diplomatic sequence without taking into account the American electoral calendar. The élections de mi-mandat de novembre 2026 are approaching. Republicans want to keep Congress. Trump wants to enter the final stretch of his term in a position of strength, with a coherent narrative: he’s the man who forced China’s respect, who got the deals, who brought Xi Jinping to Washington. This narrative is political gold for his base.

Trump’s popularity numbers suffered during the guerre contre l'Iran phase and the economic uncertainties linked to tariffs. A diplomatic narrative of strength — I forced Xi to come to my house, I signed deals for American farmers, I secured the Boeing deal — allows for the curve to be corrected. It’s cynical, but it’s reality. And international trips are the scénographie idéale for this type of narration.

The Hidden Cost of Foreign Policy as Storytelling

The problem with a foreign policy built as a campaign narrative is that décisions sont prises en fonction de leur impact communicationnel à court terme, not their long-term strategic effectiveness. We sign a deal with Xi because the photo is good and the announced numbers are impressive — even if the implementation mechanisms are fuzzy. We avoid touchy subjects because they blur the message. We multiply trips because each one is a strong image.

No matter how much diplomatic bureaucracies, think tank experts, and outside allies ring the alarm bell: the media cycle has a short memory, and Trump knows this better than anyone. The tragic paradox of our time is that the leader of the primary Western democracy is applying the communication techniques of autocratie spectaculaire — the very one he claims to compete with.

What the West Should Demand from Its President

Clear Conditions, Not Just Compliments

This isn’t about arguing for a Sino-American rupture. That would be irresponsible and counterproductive. The two economies are too intertwined, the risks of escalation too real. But it is entirely possible — and necessary — to demand that these summit meetings be accompanied by conditions claires et publiques. That the reduction of Chinese support for Russia be an explicit prerequisite for any improvement in the trade climate. That the protection of Taiwan be affirmed, not implicitly abandoned.

That European partners be consulted before, not informed after. That the American president stop treating alliances as variable-geometry bilateral agreements and start treating them again for what they are: architectures de sécurité collective construites sur des décennies of commitment and mutual trust. Trust isn’t rebuilt with a tweet. It is destroyed very quickly.

The West, Center of the World — and It Must Be Actively Defended

The Occident est le centre du monde, not because its cultural superiority is written in the stars, but because it has produced, at the cost of two world wars and countless mistakes, the only political system that places dignité individuelle, l'État de droit et la liberté d'expression at the heart of social organization. This system deserves to be defended. Actively. With conviction. Even when it’s uncomfortable, even when the current leader prefers Beijing banquets to NATO summits.

Trump is perhaps, as some say, a mal nécessaire — a therapeutic shock that forces Europe to wake up, to rearm, to think about its own security. Perhaps. But a necessary evil is still an evil. And it must be named clearly. Without complacency, without the diplomatic double-speak that allows this guy to look in the mirror and tell himself he’s defending freedom.

The Duty of Lucidity Facing the Fascination of Summits

Naming Things Clearly Without Hysteria

This isn’t about demonizing diplomacy. It’s not about pretending that Trump shouldn’t have gone to Beijing in May, nor that he shouldn’t return. China exists. It is powerful. It is unavoidable. But it is about nommer les choses clairement: when an American president multiplies trips to his main rival without ever publicly challenging him on his human rights violations, on his support for Putin’s Russia, on his military threats against Taiwan, he is not practicing realistic diplomacy — he is practicing complaisance stratégique.

The nuance is important. You can maintain intense dialogue with an adversary while maintaining a firm public stance on values. This was the practice of the American administrations that managed the Cold War: you negotiate nuclear treaties with the USSR, but you don’t go to Moscow to praise Brezhnev’s personal qualities. The difference between engagement and deference is called la clarté morale. And that is precisely what is lacking in current Trumpian diplomacy.

What Zelensky Sees That Washington Seems to Forget

Volodymyr Zelensky has a front-row seat to observe this diplomatic ballet. Since the beginning of his struggle for Ukraine’s survival, he has learned to read the signals Westerners send to each other and to their adversaries. Every Trump trip to Beijing without a firm agenda on Chinese support for Russia, every compliment on Xi Jinping’s qualities, every announcement of a new big conference in China sends a message to Moscow: la coalition occidentale a des failles, and some of its members are choosing economic deals with China over coordinated pressure against Russian aggression.

This isn’t Ukrainian paranoia. It’s lucid geopolitical reading. And Zelensky, who has survived more than one attempt to marginalize or bypass him, understands better than most Western commentators that solidarité de l'Occident is not acquired once and for all — it is defended, reaffirmed, and chosen anew every week, with every announcement, every presidential trip. It’s not Ukraine that needs to be reminded of what war is. It’s Washington.

Conclusion: Diplomacy by Whim Has a Cost the West Will Eventually Pay

A Revealing Week's Assessment

A week like this — Trump announcing another trip to China for a big conference, specifying that Xi Jinping is coming to Washington in September, adding in passing that he’ll go to Turkey, all while presenting a plane gifted by Qatar — sums up quite well what American diplomacy has become under Trump. Spectacular, personalized, unpredictable, paced by the needs of the media cycle and the requirements of the next strong image. The coût symbolique et stratégique of this approach is real. It is measured in the eroded trust of allies, in the guarantees implicitly withdrawn from Taiwan, and in the total absence of public pressure on China regarding its support for Russia and its internal repression.

This isn’t necessarily totally ineffective. Some concrete trade agreements have been reached. Communication channels with Beijing are open. But opening channels without an anchor in publicly defended values doesn’t produce diplomacy — it produces déférence habillée en engagement. And deference, in the face of China, Russia, Iran, and all those watching for the slightest sign of Western weakness, is the most dangerous thing Washington can offer right now.

The Question That Remains Unanswered Beyond the Summits

The real question, the one that obsesses me at the end of this analysis, isn’t whether Trump will get good trade deals on his next trips to Beijing. He probably will get a few. The real question is: à quel prix ? What price for American credibility in European capitals? What price for Taiwan’s security? What price for Ukrainian resistance, which needs an isolated China and not a courted China? And what price for the very idea that la démocratie est un système supérieur to autocracy — an idea that, at this precise moment, needs to be defended with more conviction than ever?

Zelensky holds his lines. Europe is rearming. The world is waiting to know if Washington is still the guarantor of the liberal order or simply one player among others in a great power game without a moral compass. The answer won’t come from a summit in Shenzhen. It will come from the choices Trump makes — or doesn’t make — when he is sitting across from Xi in November, in the Chinese Silicon Valley, while Ukraine burns and the West watches.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Sources

Sources primaires

UNN (Ukrainian News Network) — Trump announces another trip to China — June 20, 2026

Moneycontrol — All business, no games : Trump praises Xi Jinping as a smart and formidable leader — June 20, 2026

South China Morning Post — And Apec makes 4? Trump pencils in another big China trip as US midterms loom — June 20, 2026

Sources secondaires

South China Morning Post — China's Xi Jinping to pay first state visit to US in more than a decade — May 15, 2026

Politico — Trump invites Xi to Washington in September — May 14, 2026

NDTV — Donald Trump Says He Is Going To Turkey, China This Year — June 20, 2026

Wikipedia — List of presidential trips made by Donald Trump (2026) — updated June 2026

BBC News — Trump's China visit set to test fragile truce — May 11, 2026