Trump once promised to feed Xi McDonald’s. He gave him a lavish state dinner and hearty serving of praise instead
Por Alex Woodward — – World RSS Feed
analysis Trump once promised to feed Xi McDonald’s. He gave him a lavish state dinner and hearty serving of praise instead
The summit itself was the point of the visit, but Trump reveled in showing off his gilded DC in front of China’s president and a roomful of billionaires, Alex Woodward writes
Friday 25 September 2026 19:08 BST
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A decade ago, Donald Trump criticized then-President Barack Obama for hosting a state dinner for Chinese leader Xi Jinping, promising to never throw a lavish banquet for the leader of the world’s second-largest economy if he ever made it to the White House.
Trump, then mounting his first campaign for the presidency, said they should’ve just gone to McDonald’s instead. “Just take them to McDonald’s and go back to the negotiating table,” he told supporters at a rally in South Carolina in 2015.
“I’d get him a McDonald’s hamburger and I’d say, ‘we gotta get down to work,’” he later told Fox News. “I would give him a double, probably a double-size Big Mac,” he said.
On Thursday night, Trump donned a tuxedo and filled the White House with billionaires, political allies and media personalities for a massive state dinner plated on red china from Ronald Reagan’s presidency. There weren’t any burgers on the menu. Guests ate sesame-crusted sea bass, yellow squash velouté, and a dessert of vanilla crémeux with sour cherry confit and walnut frangipane.
The dinner followed Trump’s weeklong courting ritual for communist leader Xi, who was dragged around the recently renovated and under-construction White House while Trump pointed and laughed at a framed picture of Joe Biden’s “autopen” in a gold-filled corridor and boasted about his plans for a massive, heavily fortified ballroom where the East Room once stood before demolishing it.
open image in gallery“I’d like to invite everyone in the room to visit through that beautiful curtain in the back,” Trump said in the middle of Thursday night’s state dinner.
“Maybe after we’ve finished with the entertainment tonight,” he said. “Anybody wants to walk into a construction site that’s nice and sparkling, it’s our honor to have you do so.”
Burger hypocrisy aside, the contrasts couldn’t be more striking.
There was Trump throwing a glitzy, taxpayer-funded celebration of himself in front of tech billionaires, military leaders and leading figures in the AI arms race while in the middle of a war with Iran that costs billions of dollars every month.
Americans are absorbing daily and confusing news of AI breaches and the likelihood of apocalypse while figures like Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos — in a room with a combined net worth of more than $2.2 trillion — sipped Champagne alongside defense officials and weapons manufacturers.
Reporters from CNN and MS NOW weren’t allowed access to the dinner or guest arrivals, but CNN’s soon-to-be owner David Ellison, the chief executive of Paramount Skydance, was in attendance with Supreme Court justices and top Department of Justice officials while trying to nail down a dubious $111 billion merger with Warner Bros Discovery.
open image in galleryTrump joked earlier this week that China’s state-run media had “the friendliest press corps.” He was simultaneously unleashing the Justice Department into a legal battle to continue banning three news outlets from the White House altogether in what lawyers characterized as a dangerous threat to the First Amendment.
China is currently jailing at least 111 journalists and media workers in what Reporters without Borders calls “the world’s largest prison for journalists.” Among the 180 countries ranked by press freedoms, China is close to rock bottom, coming in at 178th place.
CNN and MS NOW are “fake” because they didn’t cover “one of the Biggest and Most Beautiful Events to take place in many years, the arrival at the White House of the Highly Respected President of China, Xi Jinping, and his beautiful wife, Madam Peng,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“The event was magnificent — Actually made for Television but, because they’re Fake News, and because they knew how good it would be, they didn’t want credit to be given to ‘TRUMP,’ they refused to be there,” he wrote Thursday. “That’s why they have such poor Ratings.”
All of this was designed to both impress and intimidate Xi while Trump revels in his role as a host at the center of the world’s attention, the culmination of his long-running and desperate demands to be taken seriously.
But many observers are left asking what did the visit accomplished, policy-wise.
open image in galleryTrump didn’t mention AI in his remarks at the dinner. There wasn’t any sign of a breakthrough between the two world leaders on AI, other than Trump claiming that Xi has agreed to call it “super intelligence.” It’s also unclear whether they made dent on trade, Taiwan and the U.S. war with Iran
“Tremendous things will be happening,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday morning. “Like almost everyone else, he seemed to like calling the poorly and inaccurately named Artificial Intelligence to a far more accurate and important name, SUPER INTELLIGENCE. That would be ‘SUPER!’ Everyone last night agreed, also.”
In remarks to the United Nations General Assembly this week, Trump rejected efforts to regulate AI and said he plans to “encourage” the technology, “not rein it in.”
The only control it needs, he previously said, was a strong, smart president with a high IQ — himself, he claims — and that China would be thrilled by the backlash to AI development and data center construction.
Xi, whose government has implemented some regulations around AI, appeared to recognize the risks of the technology while Trump was dismissing them. “We have both the capability and responsibility to develop and manage AI for good, and ensure that the development of AI is always under human control and serves the well-being of the people,” he said alongside Trump this week.
Trump’s pandering disguised the feud, and the visit itself was enough of a message between the two nations. But crucially for Trump, he got to show off the gilded D.C. he won’t be in office to see finished.
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Donald TrumpXi JinpingBarack ObamaElon MuskMark ZuckerbergJeff BezosCNNChinaAI
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