Welcome to Friday’s edition of Washington Secrets. Which means it is time for our regular rundown of Donald Trump’s week, and whether he won it or lost it.President Donald Trump left on his postponed trip to meet Xi Jinping this week, but without any resolution to the crisis in Iran (the reason for the delay in the first place).
On Sunday, he said he was rejecting Iran’s response to the latest peace proposal as “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.” (Capitalization all his.) The ceasefire was on “life support,” he told reporters a day later, raising speculation that he was about to start bombing the country again.
On Tuesday, Trump left for Beijing, but not without putting a Persian cat among the domestic pigeons. A president elected to make America more affordable again said he was not weighing the economic burden of the Iran war on everyday Americans while negotiating with Tehran. “Not even a little bit,” he said, lest there be any doubt.
On Thursday, Trump met Xi in the Great Hall of the People before each side issued completely different readouts of the meeting. The U.S. emphasized deals and opening China to American business. The Chinese one described how Xi “stressed to Trump that the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations.”
