'Red carpet for a despot': Trump's lavish Xi welcome collides

The Republican senators tut-tutting over President Trump’s summit with Xi Jinping sound less like statesmen and more like people who’ve never closed a deal. Calling a diplomatic visit a “red carpet for a despot” might play well at a county fundraiser, but it ignores the reason Xi came to Washington at all. You don’t invite a rival to your house just to feed them a nice dinner. You do it because you want something, and Trump clearly wants to reset the terms of a relationship that has been costing American workers billions.

The substance of the summit matters more than the pageantry. If Trump can extract real commitments on trade imbalances and intellectual property theft, then the warm welcome was simply the ante in a high-stakes game. China doesn't respect countries that scold them from the sidelines. They respect leverage, and a summit where the President looks the General Secretary in the eye and lays out the cost of continued bad behavior is where leverage gets built. The opulence is part of the strategy, not a concession.

We understand the discomfort. Xi runs a brutal system, and no conservative should ever be confused about that. But the choice is not between a hostile and distant relationship and a warm and friendly one. The choice is between a cold war that benefits no one and a competitive peace where we keep our eyes open. This is about results, not appearances.

The critics in his own party would rather see a stern press release than a signed agreement. That’s the politics of the peanut gallery. Trump is playing chess with a country that only respects power, and the real red carpet would be a weak America begging for a seat at the table. We’ll judge this summit by what comes out of it, not by the width of the welcome mat.