Trump’s 2012 Xi Welcome Criticism Resurfaces as He Hosts Chinese President
President Donald Trump is hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping with full military honors and a state dinner, a reception that has resurfaced Trump's 2012 post criticizing Barack Obama for giving Xi a similar welcome. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump personally greeted Xi at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday, a rare move for a U.S. president, before Thursday's White House ceremony featuring 479 service members, a gun salute, and a bomber flyover. In 2012, Trump had called Obama's Pentagon ceremony for Xi "so wrong," citing a trillion-dollar budget deficit. The event marks a reversal of Trump's earlier rhetoric, and it is not the first time he has adopted a stance he once attacked Obama for, including his past predictions of a U.S. war with Iran that later materialized under his own presidency.