Look, we need to talk about this video.

President Donald Trump arrived at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 14 for a state visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The ceremony had everything: red carpet, military honor guard, flags, schoolchildren waving flowers. It was textbook diplomatic pomp, the kind of thing that shows the world’s two most powerful nations treating each other with maximum respect.

And then the Star-Spangled Banner started playing. And so did what sounds, unmistakably, like gunfire.

Now, to be completely fair: those are ceremonial cannon salutes. That is a normal part of state welcome ceremonies. China was honoring the President of the United States with the full diplomatic package, and cannon salutes have been part of that package for centuries. Nobody is alleging that Xi Jinping ordered anyone to shoot at anything other than the sky.

But watch that video with your eyes closed and tell me what you hear. You hear the American national anthem, and you hear what sounds like repeated gunshots punching through it. Boom. Boom. Boom. Over and over. During our anthem. While the President of the United States stands at attention and salutes.

The White House Press Pool described the scene in real time:

“Cannon fire rang out across Tiananmen Square.” That is the pool reporter’s own language. And on the ground, with the acoustics of that massive square, the effect was apparently thunderous.

The White House itself posted official video of the arrival, presenting the moment as a formal and respectful welcome during the state visit.

Associated Press provided a full account of the ceremony’s scale and choreography:

The ceremony took place at the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square, with Trump and Xi meeting in front of a heavily choreographed state-arrival backdrop. The two leaders shook hands, spoke briefly, and posed for cameras before the welcome sequence moved into full diplomatic pageantry. The American anthem played first while ceremonial cannons sounded a welcome salute, then the two leaders moved toward the military honor guard. The scene also included goose-stepping troops, a sword-carrying Chinese service member directing the movement, and a long red-carpet path across the cleared square.

Tiananmen Square had been sealed off for the ceremony except for officials, press, military personnel, and invited participants. Military units paraded into place, American and Chinese flags were displayed across the hall and square, and hundreds of primary-school children lined the route wearing bright colors, holding flowers, and waving both nations’ flags. In other words, this was not a small handshake photo-op. It was a full visual production built to show respect, power, and protocol at the opening of Trump’s Beijing summit with Xi.

Again, all of this is honor. All of this is respect. Nobody disputes that. But the sound on video is jarring in a way that cannot be separated from recent history, because no American president in modern memory has faced what Donald Trump has faced.

Start with the most recent. On April 25, 2026, just weeks before this Beijing ceremony, a man allegedly tried to kill President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner at the Washington Hilton. The Justice Department laid out the charges:

A federal grand jury charged Cole Tomas Allen with attempting to assassinate President Donald J. Trump in connection with the April 25 shooting at the Washington Hilton. The indictment also charged Allen with assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon, transporting a firearm and ammunition in interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony, and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. According to DOJ, Trump was present at the dinner when Allen ran toward the stairs leading to the ballroom and fired a Mossberg Maverick 88 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, hitting a Secret Service officer in the chest. Allen was arrested with the shotgun, a .38 caliber pistol, dozens of rounds of ammunition, knives, daggers, sheaths, holsters, pliers, and wire cutters.

That was three weeks ago. Three weeks before the President stood in Beijing listening to cannon blasts tear through his national anthem.

And that was the third publicly documented gun-related assassination attempt or alleged attempt. The FBI and Justice Department have detailed the others:

On July 13, 2024, a shooting at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania resulted in the death of one spectator and injuries to then-former President Trump and other attendees. The FBI investigated the shooting as an assassination attempt and potential domestic terrorism, said the shooter acted alone based on the evidence available at that stage, and said the firearm used in the attack had been purchased legally. Trump survived that attack after being wounded in the ear while speaking outdoors to supporters.

Then on September 15, 2024, a Secret Service agent spotted the barrel of a rifle aimed from brush near the sixth hole at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. Agents fired at the suspect, and a federal grand jury later indicted Ryan Wesley Routh for attempted assassination. Investigators recovered an SKS semiautomatic rifle with a scope, an extended magazine, and other materials near the fence line where Routh had allegedly been positioned.

Butler. West Palm Beach. The Washington Hilton. And now our President stands on a red carpet in Beijing, saluting, while what sounds exactly like gunfire hammers through the Star-Spangled Banner.

Let’s say it one more time for the people in the back: this was ceremonial cannon fire. It was an act of diplomatic honor. President Xi was giving President Trump the full red-carpet treatment, and by every account the two leaders were cordial and the pageantry was grand.

But optics are optics, and sound is sound. And when you have a president who has been shot at more than any American leader since the attempts on Gerald Ford, the sound of explosions ripping through the national anthem hits different. It just does. The Chinese protocol team probably never thought twice about it. Cannon salutes are what they do. But for Americans watching that clip at home, knowing what this president has survived, the audio lands like a gut punch.

President Trump, for his part, stood ramrod straight, saluted, and did not flinch. Because of course he didn’t. The man took a bullet to the ear and stood up pumping his fist. Ceremonial cannons in Beijing were never going to rattle him.

But the rest of us are allowed to wince.

What’s your perspective?


This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
 

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