‘Abysmally weak’: Carlos Giménez blasts Joe Biden for Xi Jinping meeting at APEC summit

Images via U.S. House of Representatives and AP.

U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez says President Joe Biden made another unforced error on the international stage late last week, when he met and posed for photos with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Peru.

Considering the Chinese Communist Party’s inhumane treatment of people living in and outside China’s bounds, the last thing a U.S. President should do is show Xi civility — but that’s just what Biden did, Giménez said.

Biden and Xi shook hands on camera with Xi during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima. On Saturday, the two leaders discussed handling North Korea, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and, as Biden put it, ensuring that “competition between our two countries will not veer into conflict.”

Giménez bashed Biden on Monday for what he saw as a soft-handed approach to what should have been a stern interaction with Xi, who has overseen myriad human rights violations while working to make China supplant America as the world’s leading superpower.

“Biden just handed murderous Communist Chinese dictator Xi Jinping a public relations victory at the APEC summit,” Giménez said in a statement.

“The Biden-Harris Administration has been abysmally weak in countering the direct threat posed by Communist China. Communist China corrals Uyghurs in concentration camps, persecutes the Tibetan people, threatens our ally Taiwan, and attempts to be the world’s dominant military and economic power by the year 2049.”

The proper approach, Giménez added, is for the U.S. to “decouple from Communist China and lead from a position of strength.”

Giménez, a former Mayor of Miami-Dade, is now serving in his third term representing Miami-Dade and Monroe counties in Florida’s 28th Congressional District. He is a member of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, which on Monday was confirmed to be continuing its work through 2026.

Since its December 2022 inception, the bipartisan panel has held dozens of hearings, business meetings and investigations focused on biosecurity, research security, cybersecurity, environmental concerns, banning the Chinese-owned app TikTok and confronting repression inside China.

Two days before Biden’s photo op with Xi, U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican who chairs the committee, introduced legislation to revoke China’s permanent normal trade status.

The move came more than eight months after Giménez called attention to China’s growing influence in Central and South America, including the Panamá Canal and several key ports in Peru.

In July, he and fellow U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor raised concerns about the United States’ escalating dependence on critical minerals from China.

Xi said Saturday that he looked forward to working again with President-elect Donald Trump, whom Giménez has staunchly supported. But Xi warned of “four red lines” Trump and the U.S. “must not” challenge: China’s self-determination, its right to develop, Taiwan, and democracy and human rights.

Trump may have plans to deviate from the current administration on at least one of those issues. In June, he told Bloomberg Businessweek that Taiwan should compensate the U.S. for the defense aid it receives.