Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., is sounding the alarm over President Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, calling the warm White House reception a “WTF moment” given Trump’s past criticism of the communist nation.
Tillis voiced his confusion over Thursday’s meeting during an interview with CBS News’ Tony Dokoupil.
“It’s a WTF moment,” said the senator, who is retiring from the Senate in January.
Tillis said he supports Trump the “majority of the time.” But he felt compelled to call out the president over the Chinese leader’s visit, particularly when it is compared with tense visits to the White House by leaders of allied nations, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The North Carolina Republican warned that Xi’s intentions should not be misunderstood.
“It’s not that Xi Jinping is coming here to learn how to become a democratic, capitalist nation. Xi Jinping is trying to understand how his opposition will ultimately embrace their worldview,” Tillis said.
He added that the meeting amounted to “bad timing.”
Tillis stressed that any effort to improve relations with Beijing must come with accountability.
“If we want to build a relationship, a productive relationship with Xi Jinping and China, we also have to hold him accountable for things that are just simply unacceptable,” he said.
The senator argued that Trump was far more focused on holding China accountable during his first presidential run and his first term in office.
Tillis said he is at a loss to explain what has shifted since then.
“I just don’t know what has changed. Whatever has changed had to have been at a confidential level, because I haven’t seen any public basis for the sea change that we see right now in our posture towards China,” Tillis said.
During Thursday’s state visit, Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for Xi. The warm welcome drew backlash from critics, as did a moment inside the White House in which Trump mocked former President Joe Biden in front of the Chinese leader.
The visit also unfolded against the backdrop of Trump’s attempt to ban MS NOW, CNN and Politico from the White House.
On Thursday, as reporters from those outlets were working to restore their credentials following a judge’s order, Trump joked that China’s state media was the “friendliest” press corps he had seen.
Tillis’ comments stand out coming from a Republican senator who says he backs the president most of the time. His criticism centers on what he views as a sharp and unexplained change in Washington’s approach toward Beijing.
For Tillis, the contrast is hard to ignore. He pointed to the chilly reception some allied leaders have received at the White House, compared with the red-carpet treatment given to the leader of the communist nation.
The retiring senator made clear he is not opposed to building ties with China. But he argued that a productive relationship must be paired with holding Xi accountable for actions he described as simply unacceptable.
Until he sees a public explanation for the shift, Tillis suggested, he will remain puzzled by the administration’s new posture toward China.
