When President Donald Trump first ran for office, he called out China as a menace to the U.S. economy, saying it had gutted America’s factories and eroded the middle class.

That tough talk helped Trump get to the White House a decade ago, but since then, he increasingly speaks in glowing terms about Chinese President Xi Jinping, the geopolitical rival Trump will fete on Thursday with a state dinner.

“He’s a great gentleman; we get along great,” Trump said this month. “We have a very good trading relationship and, you know, they’re a competitor and all of that, but we have a very good relationship with President Xi.”

On issue after issue, the Republican president has given Xi a pass.

Trump shrugged off reports that China had provided Iran with satellite imagery, saying, “I think he’s behaved reasonably well.” After accusing Beijing of accessing U.S. voter files back in 2020, Trump indicated he was hesitant to retaliate: “I think China is maybe a little bit different today than it was then.”

Trump’s magnanimity comes as China and the United States are in a contest for global leadership, with some of America’s traditional allies rethinking their strategies. China has expanded its dominance in manufacturing and pushed into new technologies such as artificial intelligence and electric vehicles that create risks for the economies of the U.S., Germany, Italy, France, South Korea and Japan, among others.

Trump tried to confront China with tariffs, but that backfired

Unable to change Chinese behavior, Trump has resorted to hospitality.

He traveled to Beijing in May, and the two leaders could meet again two more times this year at international summits. Trump has readied a helipad on the White House South Lawn before Xi’s arrival and has lamented that his ballroom will not be ready to host the Chinese leader.

Trump has insisted that the U.S. is comfortably ahead of China, but his efforts last year to confront China with a mounting set of tariffs backfired. China holds a relative monopoly on the rare earths used in electronics and deployed that to help force a trade armistice with Trump.

“Trump has dramatically shifted his approach to China because his initial attempt to use super-high tariffs and export restrictions was unsuccessful,” said Michael Kovrig, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group. “Xi and Trump got into a contest of leverage, and Xi came out on top.”

Meanwhile, Trump has largely undermined the economic and national security alliances that could previously apply pressure on China, said Kovrig, a former Canadian diplomat who was detained by China during Trump’s first term.

Trump has mocked French President Emmanuel Macron in speeches. He has run hot and cold on NATO after several of its members did not fully support his choice to start a war with Iran. Trump has launched a potentially brutal trade fight with Canada, a longtime ally he has trolled as becoming the 51st American state.

“He’s executing Xi’s wedge tactics for him, and along the way, helping Xi to tell a story about China as the more stable and responsible power,” Kovrig said. “It’s led to a wave of Western leaders visiting Beijing and seeking to stabilize and improve their relations with Xi so they can focus more on dealing with problems Trump is causing them.”

Trump can point to some symbolic wins from having a pleasant relationship with Xi.

While Xi met three times on the sidelines of international summits with Democratic President Joe Biden, Trump will have achieved a pair of reciprocal state visits in a sign that the leaders of the world’s two largest economies feel comfortable speaking to each other.