Donald Trump’s summit with China’s Xi Jinping offered a neat metaphor for the Trump presidency: plenty of pageantry, no coherent strategic plan and a clear victory for America’s main global adversary. The difficult issues defining the relationship between the United States and China barely moved.

The spectacle instead resembled a declining power fawning over a rising one. Trump greeted Xi on the tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base with a literal red carpet, a rare honor even for close allies and not one typically extended to adversaries.

The last such welcome came in 1962, when President Kennedy greeted British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan. Trump’s apparent highlight was showing Xi his new gallery of past presidents, where an autopen stood in for Joe Biden, and drawing a laugh from the Chinese leader.

Xi dominated both the optics and the substance. China’s aid to Iran was not discussed, while the trade talks produced only a temporary patch extending the existing partial pause in the trade war until January.

On artificial intelligence, Xi dismissed the concerns in lofty language. “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.”

Trump did not press the issue because he views the competition as an AI arms race for supremacy that the United States can win. That left another major concern on the table without meaningful progress.

Taiwan produced an even more troubling picture. According to China’s official news agency, Xinhua, Xi privately warned Trump to “adhere to the correct position of opposing ‘Taiwan independence.’”

Trump has yet to approve $14 billion in promised military aid to Taiwan, despite pressure from congressional Republicans and Democrats. U.S. ambassador to China David Perdue told Fox News on Sunday that Trump at one point asked Xi whether he would like to buy arms from the United States.

Trump’s treatment of Xi also managed to split his own political base on the eve of an election. Republican senators delivered unusually blunt reminders about the Chinese leader whom Trump was honoring with all that White House pomp.

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, went to the Senate floor to remind Trump that “his guest is a brutal, unelected, and oppressive dictator who seeks to dominate his neighbors and whose massive military arsenal is aimed directly at the United States of America.”

Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana was even more direct. “I think President Xi is a reptile,” Kennedy said. “I’ve met President Xi … This man thinks he’s on a mission from God except his god is himself.”

Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina called the visit “a WTF moment.” Tillis argued that Trump’s performance demolished Republican messaging that attempts to brand Democrats as communists.

“The president campaigned on an anti-China policy,” Tillis said. “You go look at those MAGA rallies and look at everybody cheering when he said he’s going to take it to China.”

Mitch McConnell and three other Republican senators sent War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio a letter quoting the White House’s earlier strong support for Taiwan. They protested Trump’s withholding of $1.3 billion in congressionally approved security assistance and $14 billion in arms sales.

The senators said Trump wanted to use the money as a “negotiating chip” with Beijing. Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, chair of the House Select Committee on China, separately called China America’s “foremost foreign adversary and greatest external threat.”

Moolenaar urged tighter limits on China’s access to American AI and semiconductor technology. Trump, meanwhile, skipped the customary joint press conference with Xi and settled for a photo session.

Searching for something resembling a triumph, Trump showed Xi his new White House helipad. He remarked that Xi “is an expert on stone, aside from many other things, and he loves good granite.”

Trump has also invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Miami G20 summit at the Trump Doral golf club in December. Fourteen senators objected in a bipartisan letter and urged Trump to withdraw the invitation, while Xi is also expected to attend.

After the summit, the two countries announced token tariff reductions covering $60 billion in nonsensitive goods out of $496 billion in annual trade. Xi also confirmed that Atlanta’s zoo would receive two giant pandas, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, as a loan rather than a gift.

The bargain practically writes its own souvenir slogan: China got global hegemony, while Trump got two lousy pandas. For a president obsessed with winning, the summit looked like an extravagant exercise in letting Xi walk away with the far better deal.