President Trump rolled out a 100-foot red carpet and sent B-1 Lancer bombers screaming over Xi Jinping's head at Joint Base Andrews Wednesday, sending a message to Beijing and the foreign policy establishment at the same time: America negotiates from strength, not through the usual middlemen.
The stakes for ordinary Americans couldn't be clearer. The Trump administration has spent its second term systematically dismantling China's footholds in this hemisphere — blocking Beijing from Arctic bases via the Greenland security deal, forcing Chinese port operators out of the Panama Canal, and seizing majority control of Venezuelan oil that China had eyed, according to the New York Post. Now Trump is bringing the same approach to the negotiating table face-to-face.
The arrival ceremony was a spectacle of raw power. A 21-gun salute, service platoons from every branch, and two B-1 bombers ripping through the sky at 900 miles per hour as the national anthem played. Trump braced himself as the jets roared overhead, then turned to Xi: "That was loud." The Gateway Pundit noted the display outdid the welcome Xi gave Trump in Beijing last May.
Thursday's Oval Office talks and state dinner follow, with the Post reporting a promised flyover of F-22 fighters and a B-2 bomber before the sit-down. Republican hawks like Sen. Tom Cotton want Trump to press Xi on stealing American AI models and threatening Taiwan and Japan, and to demand the release of detained Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai.
Meanwhile, the establishment press tried to kneecap coverage of the whole event. ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and NBC suspended their pooled White House coverage to protest Trump's ban of CNN, MS Now, and Politico from the press pool. It backfired. Lindell TV and Real America's Voice stepped in and broadcast the ceremony worldwide, according to the Gateway Pundint. The Post framed the visit as "Commie Week" — pairing it with Trump's Monday meeting with New York Mayor Mamdani — but buried the media boycott entirely.
The real action is the AI arms race. Trump has rebranded artificial intelligence as "Super Intelligence" and declared repeatedly: "Whoever wins AI, WINS!" Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent predicts America will hold 80% of the world's computing power by 2028, up from roughly 60% last year. Sen. Bernie Sanders demanded Trump negotiate a treaty banning superintelligence — a proposal the Post dismissed with a laugh. Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer accused Trump of "once again bend[ing] the knee to the CCP," a rich claim after Joe Biden spent four years kowtowing to Beijing while his son Hunter raked in Chinese millions.
The establishment hates this summit because direct negotiation from a position of strength cuts out their entire rationale. If Trump can sit across from Xi and lay down the law — backed by B-1 bombers and an expanding American tech edge — what exactly do the think-tankers and lobbyists and cable-news hawks add to the equation?
The open question is what Trump extracts behind closed doors. The flyovers are theater. The deals are what matter.
