WASHINGTON (AP) — Communism, President Donald Trump says, is the greatest threat the U.S. has ever faced.
This summer, citing similarly grave concerns, he took the rare step of delivering a primetime address to the nation, accusing China of “sinister election meddling” in 2020 and reviving his yearslong push to dispute his loss in that year's election.
Even as Trump seeks to decry Democrats as communists ahead of November's midterm elections, he is rolling
out the red carpet this week for Chinese President Xi Jinping, the leader of the world’s most powerful communist country.
The state visit comes as the president himself has increasingly directed his administration to take large stakes in private companies to try to stimulate the economy — something even some Republicans decry as corporate socialism.
The contradictions between Trump's words and actions risk muddying Republican attack lines on Democrats.
“I do think that we’re not offering a clear contrast," said Marc Short, who was chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence and worked in Trump's White House in his first term.
During the recent Republican midterm convention in Dallas, the president repeatedly branded Democrats as communists, even proclaiming, “It’s going to be a communist country if they win.”
“In state after state, the Democrat establishment has been overthrown and replaced by crazed lunatics and radicals,” he said, adding, “America has beaten communism before, and we will beat it again."
That's a reference to candidates aligned with democratic socialists who won Democratic primaries in Michigan, Colorado, New York, Florida and Pennsylvania. Trump and other Republicans argue it shows the party is too extreme, although they exaggerate many of the political realities.
It is a way to shift the narrative in the face of a series of drags on the popularity of Trump and his party with Election Day looming. Those include an increasingly unpopular war in Iran, concerns about inflation remaining high and Trump’s approval ratings retreating to near historic lows.
The White House secured agreements giving the federal government stakes in more than 30 companies — including nuclear power producer Westinghouse, metals and element concerns and chipmaker Intel. It has ignored the criticism that this strategy aligns it more with centrally planned economies than capitalist ones.
“If socialism is government owning the means of production, wouldn’t the government owning part of Intel be a step toward socialism?” Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican and frequent Trump antagonist, wrote on X.
During a recent House committee hearing, Connecticut Democratic Rep. Jim Himes told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, “I can think of no administration in the last 50 years that is quite as communist as the Trump administration."
The president insists more such agreements are coming. “I will make deals like that for our Country all day long,” he posted.
The White House didn't answer questions on whether it saw discrepancies between Trump talking about denouncing Democrats as communists while expressing fondness for Xi and having the government take large stakes in private companies.
Short, the former Pence aide who is now chairman of the conservative advocacy group Advancing American Freedom, said he thinks Republicans are taking “very legitimate attack lines" by painting Democrats as being too far left.
But he said the administration risks “picking winners and losers in the economy" with its private company stakes, as well as with Trump's proposal to send $5,000 to every adult American if the GOP retains control of Congress after November, and his push for price controls on goods such as pharmaceuticals.
“I think those policies, you know, lead to enormous, enormous intervention from the government into the economy," Short said. But he made it clear that he believes the measures don't come close to making the U.S. into a socialist economy like China.
Even as he criticizes Democrats for cozying up to communists, Trump has bragged about his close relationship with China's leader, his chief global rival. When he was in Beijing in May, the president talked effusively about what “an amazing time" he had.
He’s not been shy about underscoring that he was building a helicopter landing pad he calls a “work of art” on the south lawn of the White House to impress Xi, while lamenting that his White House ballroom wouldn't be completed in time.
“I can tell you this: It’s too bad we don’t have the ballroom open,” Trump said Friday.
The president also has recalled visiting the Great Hall of the People while in China, and suggested the ballroom might become the “Great Hall of the United States.”
Trump's admiration for Xi is part of his fascination with strongmen, said Marc Selverstone, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs. Trump has also boasted about his warm relationships with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“His interest in strongmen who are communist and strongmen who are not communists,” Selverstone said. “That’s constant, and playing to them is not unfamiliar to Trump.”
There is often some disconnect between the high and delicate diplomatic stakes of a summit during an election season — as evidenced by Trump himself the last time Xi came to Washington for a state visit.
In 2015, as then-President Barack Obama was preparing to host Xi, Trump — in the midst of his first run for president — criticized the pomp.
“Just take them to McDonald’s and go back to the negotiating table,” Trump said then, during a rally in South Carolina. He later conceded on Fox News Channel that Xi might at least be worthy of getting "probably a double-size Big Mac.”
After he won the presidency, though, Trump's tone has shifted. By 2018, he was even marveling at Xi's position in communist China, remarking that “He’s now president for life," during a GOP fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump briefly appeared to buck his soft spot for Xi in July during his national address when he announced the declassification of documents he said showed a pattern of China interfering in U.S. elections.
“Our elections were left vulnerable to being rigged and stolen,” Trump said, without criticizing Xi or calling for penalties against China.
The documents ultimately didn’t reveal much new information, or support Trump's claims. And the president has since tried to downplay the alleged election meddling.
"It took place a long time ago. I think China is maybe a little bit different today than it was then,” Trump said days after the speech.
Senior administration officials declined to comment on whether accusations of Chinese meddling in the 2020 election would come up during Trump’s discussions with Xi. But it's unlikely that the politics of the midterms will have much impact on the summit, said Ali Wyne, a senior research and advocacy adviser on U.S.-China relations at the International Crisis Group.
“President Trump was very quick, in the aftermath of the (July) speech, to focus his ire on the mainstream media, Democrats. He didn’t condemn President Xi,” Wyne said, further noting that, when it came to Beijing, Trump made it "clear that the U.S. relationship was still on track.”
