Donald Trump will get played when he meets Chinese President Xi Jinping face-to-face during their high-stakes meeting this week, the president’s longtime biographer alleges.
Trump, 80, will welcome Xi, 73, to Washington, D.C. on Wednesday for the Chinese autocrat’s first visit to the United States capital in more than a decade.
Talks between the two superpowers are set to address many issues, from artificial intelligence to the war with Iran to tariffs and rare earths—but author Michael Wolff tells the Inside Trump’s Head podcast that Trump simply cannot leave with a good deal for the United States.
“He needs good news,” Wolff tells co-host Joanna Coles. “And his way of getting good news is not to negotiate a good deal. His way of getting good news is to agree. So he goes into flattery mode.”
He continued, “I’m sure Xi will flatter Donald Trump, and in return, Donald Trump will flatter him, and that will result in the Chinese getting what the Chinese want.”
An advanced itinerary shows that Trump will pull out all the stops for Xi.
Trump will welcome Xi and Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan in person at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday, even though U.S. presidents rarely greet foreign leaders on the tarmac and instead wait for them to arrive at the White House.
The real royal treatment begins Thursday. That is when Trump will host Xi for only the second state dinner of his second term—the first was in April with the United Kingdom’s King Charles III and Queen Camilla.
Administration officials tell Politico that Trump, who is usually eager to cast himself as the most powerful person in the room, is taking a different tack with Xi. The report claims Trump will try to woo the Chinese president and position himself as his “equal.”
But Wolff, who has written four tell-alls about Trump and spent time in the White House during his first term, warned that the man who made “the art of the deal” his calling card will ultimately sabotage himself at the negotiating table.
“Everybody is dependent on Donald Trump here—on Donald Trump understanding the stakes, the nuances, the subtleties, the risks,” he said. “This is where the rubber hits the road. It’s Donald Trump. And we have to depend upon him understanding what can go wrong.”
He said the biggest issue is that Trump “doesn’t listen” to experts and his advisers.
“All presidents are just human beings, and they have to... depend upon other people to have analyzed the problems and other people’s intelligence,” Wolff said. “He doesn’t do that. He doesn’t do that.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung has previously told the Daily Beast that “Michael Wolff is a lying sack of s--t and has been proven to be a fraud.”
Trump and Xi last met in May when Trump visited Beijing. He had nothing but effusive praise for Xi during the summit, calling him a “great leader” and declaring, “We’re going to have a fantastic future together.”
Xi did not meet Trump on the tarmac of Beijing Capital International Airport during that visit, instead sending a team of Chinese delegates, including Vice President Han Zheng.
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