The U.S. President is No Longer the Most Powerful Man in the World YEAR OF THE DRAGON David Rothkopf Chief Global Affairs Columnist Published May 11 2026 12:00PM EDT OPINION /GEETTPhoto Illustration by Eric Faison/The Daily Beast/Reuters/Getty This week, from the 13th to the 15th of May, the two men who have arguably done the most during this century to make China the world’s most powerful nation will meet in Beijing. One is China’s leader, Xi Jinping. The other is Donald Trump, an aging, increasingly feeble president one month shy of his 80th birthday. He’s seeking a traditional Chinese remedy for the many things that ail him. At the very least, he hopes to change the subject from his disastrous war in Iranand plummeting domestic political fortunes. More ambitiously, but in all likelihood futilely, he hopes to help his own dimming brand by associating it with the man he sees as the gold standard among the world leaders he most admires. U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping react as they hold a bilateral meeting at Gimhae International Airport, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, in Busan, South Korea on October 30, 2025. Evelyn Hockstein/REUTERS In so doing, Trump will be following in the footsteps of many dignitaries throughout history who have journeyed to China’s capital to meet with that country’s ruler. It is a line that stretches back millennia and reportedly includes Marcus Aurelius, Papal legates, and Asian heads of state. Such visits in ancient times followed a strict protocol via which foreign visitors were compelled to recognize their inferiority to China’s leader. Tributes were brought. Gifts were bestowed. And formal audiences typically involved a complex ritual known as the “three kneelings and nine prostrations.” This process, which involved a lot of bowing and scraping, was known as the Grand Kowtow. While modern Chinese leaders do not seek such outright displays of obeisance from visiting heads of state and government, don’t be surprised if a grand kowtow is the net result of this summit. continued…
Continued: Donald Trump, despite recent articles that suggest that he currently views himself as a great historical figure, is, in relative terms, the weakest U.S. president to ever meet with China’s top official. Trump has systematically weakened America’s alliances, squandered its resources, undermined American standing, and tampered with the engines of U.S. strength in research and development, academia, and leadership in key industries. Furthermore, Trump has almost systematically taken steps that have benefited China. He has promoted fossil fuels and pushed up their prices, thus enabling China, the world leader in green technology, to cash in. He has turned away the best minds from our universities by scaring away immigrants, which has weakened the U.S. and, in many respects, aided China. He has cut funding for scientific research while China has done the opposite. He has siphoned off dollars that could have been invested in American schools and the health of the U.S. workforce to enhance the wealth of a tiny subset of the U.S.’s richest people. He has fostered trade wars and enabled China to step in and seize new markets. He has made America look undependable and China, by comparison, appear more stable. He has gutted U.S. assistance to foreign countries and, in so doing, created important openings for a China eager to grow its networks worldwide. China is leading in many new technologies of tomorrow, whereas the U.S., often the birthplace of innovation, is falling behind. Trump has so damaged the core U.S. relationships with countries worldwide that he is seen more as a pariah than any American leader ever. Certainly, as an enemy of democracy and supporter of strong men worldwide, Trump can no longer claim, as past U.S. presidents did, to be the “leader of the free world.” Indeed, in many ways, this trip will mark the end of the idea that America’s president is the world’s most powerful person. While China has a plethora of problems, it has seized on Trump-induced weaknesses and other U.S. missteps to dramatically expand its influence worldwide through trade, investment, aid, and diplomacy. Indeed, as illustrated in the current Middle East crisis, China is pioneering a different approach to being a superpower—less ideological, more transactional, more soft-touch and low-key than the U.S. (or the Soviet Union) in prior decades. Even hosting Trump for this visit is an example of that. Trump will be feted. He will get the pomp he loves. He will be granted latitude by the Chinese to say he pressed them on key issues—like aiding Iran—when in fact, he will apply very little pressure at all. Rather, Trump, desperate for a winon the world stage will seek deliverables by dipping into his old bag of tricks (creating a crisis via a trade war and then declaring a win when he undoes the damage) and letting China dip into theirs (promising to buy billions of dollars worth of American products and invest in the U.S…despite a track record of not honoring such promises in the past.) Trump can declare the trip a success and talk of his great relationship with Xi. And behind closed doors, China may just get a wink and a nod about its aspirations to reunite with Taiwan, a subject about which, like most things in this world that do not directly result in cash transfers to Trump family bank accounts, Trump really doesn’t care that much. At least that is the expectation and the worry of many experienced U.S. China hands. President Donald Trump speaks in the East Room at the White House in Washington, D.C. on May 4, 2026. Kylie Cooper/REUTERS Certainly, Trump’s tacit and often directly support of Russia’s war of aggression with Ukraine (while launching illegal wars of his own), his shifting U.S. military resources out of the Indo-Pacific region, and depleting stockpiles of key weapons are already seen as having sent clear messages to China that the door to moving to annex Taiwan is more open than it has been at any time in decades. But Trump’s attention will not be on the long-term future of the U.S.-China relationship. Rather, it will be on seeking to engineer a respite to a litany of developments in his second term in office that have ranged from failures to catastrophes. Trump will instead focus on photo ops and feel-good superficialities, while the Chinese know that all they need to do, beyond offering those great banquets and flattering toasts, is let Trump be Trump—and that with his every action, he will very likely continue to make China stronger. Distracted by his narcissism, Trump won’t even notice that China’s social media is full of memes mocking the U.S. president or that one of the most popular nicknames for him in China is Chuan Jianguo—which literally means “comrade nation builder.” It is, of course, an acid Chinese reference to the work Trump is doing to help strengthen not the U.S. but the People’s Republic of China.
‘Duped’: Ari Melber breaks down the MAGA backlash over Trump Mobile disaster https://www.ms.now/news/trump-mobile-backlash-gold-smartphone-grift-meme-coin When will these nitwits ever learn? Trump is a con man.
If any former President had done anything similar to the three posts above this one, he would have been removed from office. But since it’s Trump and his supporters are in a cult, it’s just another Tuesday.
Well, word on the street is the Trump phones start shipping this week. They went from "Made in America" to "designed with American values in mind." Typical Trump. He had the knockoffs made abroad instead of in the USA, just like most of the crap he sells at his Trump store.
There really isn't enough space for all the distractions Add in Canada, Greenland, Gulf of America, Taco Tuesdays, Election Conspiracies, Lawsuits upon Lawsuits, Attacks on Media, Attacks on Reporters, Attacks on Journalists, Rotating Dept Heads, Putting his name and face on everything, Trump phones, Trump Gold Cards, Crying about not getting his Peace Prize, Receiving all his Fake Awards, Melania's Documentary, Vanity Projects, Frenzy Rage Posting, and on and on it goes. None of that crap is helping Americans! Meanwhile, the excuses for his "blinking" while sleeping through meetings, press conferences, and festivities gets old. The bruises covered with makeup from "too much hand shaking" excuse gets old. His health is deteriorating and that and the Epstein files coverup continues. Golden Age my ass!
will probably just sit out the midterms and then vote for JD Vance or whatever other garbage republican they trot out in 2028 I don’t trust any of these idiots he knows what drew him to MAGA, he just doesn’t want to say it live on air…but we all know
This is what I've been saying for years. This whole movement started with Sarah Palin. She made it fashionable to be stupid. She gave stupid people a voice. She chased off all the sensible moderate Republicans (like myself) and that led to the Tea Party. And the Tea Party ultimately led to Trump. Just a slow dumbing down of the entire Republican party. #RichOrStupid Makes you wonder how things would be now had McCain never chose Palin as his VP candidate.
This is very accurate. Palin was the gateway to Trump. When she was selected Republicans had to pretend that a ****ing moron was qualified to be one step away from President. This paved the way for Trump.
