From tariff overlord to tarmac man, Trump to roll out red carpet for Xi

File photo: US President Donald Trump with Chinese President Xi Jinping TOI correspondent from Washington: Donald Trump has spent years telling Americans that China has been eating America's lunch. On Wednesday, he will go to the airport to welcome the man who owns the restaurant.In an unprecedented spectacle, Trump will schlep where no US President has gone before – travel to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, DC, to personally receive Chinese President Xi Jinping as he arrives for a three-day state visit, briefly transforming himself from an imperious tariff overlord to a deferential tarmac man.The optics will be hard to miss. Xi's airbase reception is to be followed by an elaborate ceremonial welcome at the White House the following day, including a 479-member military honour guard, a presidential salute and military review in the Rose Garden, and a flyover featuring a B-2 Spirit bomber escorted by four F-22 Raptors in a show aimed at impressing a country that appears to have passed the stage of being impressed.Diplomatic scholars are already weighing in, noting that the last US Presidents to go to the airport to receive a foreign dignitary were Obama and Bush, who went ...