Chinese President Xi Jinping may have rolled out the red carpet for Donald Trump. But they didn’t have tea time.
Trump, 79, was forced to wave off any jealousy over a private tea meeting between the Chinese leader and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing, just days after the president wrapped up his own trip to the country.
“[Xi] told me he was going to; I think it’s good,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “I get along with both of them, but I think it’s good.”
He quickly claimed that Putin didn’t get the same royal treatment he did.
“I don’t know if the ceremony was quite as brilliant as mine,” he told reporters. “I watched; we topped them.”
Trump and Putin were both treated to similar festivities, like a military honor guard and marching bands, but Putin’s visit appeared to be far more substantial.
As they sipped tea at an informal ceremony, the two foreign leaders presented a united front against American policies and laid out a vision for a post-American imperial world. The leaders issued several veiled references to Trump, according to The New York Times, including a joint statement condemning the “assassination” and “abduction” of world leaders—an apparent reference to Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Xi also referred to China and Russia as forces of “calm amid chaos” on the world stage while taking a thinly veiled jab at the turbulence the Trump presidency has caused on issues ranging from Iran to sweeping tariffs.
He added that China and Russia must strengthen their “comprehensive strategic coordination.”
The comments were also similar to a joint statement issued by Beijing and the Kremlin, which warned of the danger of the “fragmentation” of the international community and a return to the “law of the jungle.”
“Attempts by a number of states to unilaterally manage global affairs, impose their interests on the entire world, and limit the sovereign development of other countries, in the spirit of the colonial era, have failed,” it stated.
Meanwhile, Trump struggled to explain what Chinese leader Xi Jinping had committed to following their bilateral meetings last week—offering vague descriptions of their discussions while touting an unconfirmed Boeing jet deal.
“We talked about a lot of things,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “Too many things to discuss. We had a very good meeting.”
That said, it’s not clear what Trump was referring to when he described the meeting between U.S. adversaries—and his own frenemies— as “good.” The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
If anything, the Chinese and Russian leaders appeared to signal they were strengthening their alliance against Trump, who, during his visit, received a pointed message from Xi about Beijing’s closeness with Moscow.
In a televised exchange last week during a tour of Zhongnanhai, a closely guarded compound for China’s Communist leaders, Xi told Trump that foreign leaders only “very rarely” are allowed to visit the area. But then he added with a laugh, “For example, Putin has been here.”
After Putin’s meeting with Xi wrapped up Wednesday, one of his aide’s appeared to take a swipe at Trump, suggesting it’s time to forget about the “spirit of Anchorage” that was hailed as a new beginning for U.S.-Russia ties following a summit in the Alaskan city last year.
Instead, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said, the “spirit of Beijing” is something that “genuinely exists.”
Dictator-curious Trump may have been a little green with envy, but at least he didn’t lash out as fiercely as when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Putin were spotted holding hands in September.
“What few people understand is that we do very little business with India, but they do a tremendous amount of business with us,” Trump raged on Truth Social later that day. “In other words, they sell us massive amounts of goods, their biggest ‘client,’ but we sell them very little - Until now a totally one sided relationship, and it has been for many decades.”
