CHRIS BUCKTIN: 'Donald Trump built himself a Great Wall of trouble; he now owns a China crisis of his own making'

CHRIS BUCKTIN: 'Donald Trump built himself a Great Wall of trouble; he now owns a China crisis of his own making'Donald Trump will arrive in Beijing expecting to dominate China, only to find himself weakened by his own Iran war and increasingly dependent on Xi Jinping to help steady the global crisis he helped create.NewsopinionChristopher Bucktin United States Editor10:49, 12 May 2026Updated 10:53, 12 May 2026View 4 ImagesDonald Trump will meet Xi Jinping in Beijing as America’s president arrives needing China’s co-operation more than he ever expected(Image: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images) Donald Trump will arrive in Beijing this week facing a humiliating reality no modern American president has encountered before. For the first time since Richard Nixon stepped onto Chinese soil in 1972, the US president will not be the most powerful man in the room. Xi Jinping will be. ‌ And deep down, Trump, who, despite reportedly comparing himself to Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte and Alexander the Great, to aides, knows it. In the president's mind, this visit is supposed to be the summit where he swaggers into China as the self-declared master of the art of the deal and forces Beijing to retreat in the reckless trade war he started. ‌ Instead, he arrives carrying the smoking wreckage of another self-inflicted disaster: his catastrophic war with Iran. ‌ View 4 ImagesTrump faces growing pressure as his Iran war fallout collides with a high-stakes China summit(Image: Getty Images) READ MORE: China defies Trump and sails tanker through Strait of Hormuz blockade in show of forceOPINIONChristopher Bucktin'The art of the woeful deal: Trump’s two-week ceasefire as stable as a house of cards'Donald Trump