At 7pm President Donald Trump sat down with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, and their wives for a formal dinner in his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Among the 30 or so guests who joined them around the table were the inner circle of the fledgling US administration – not even 80 days into a term.



Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner were there, as was the White House chief of staff Reince Priebus. Chief strategist Stephen Bannon was also present, fresh from his demotion from the National Security Council.

The nature of the conversation at the meal cannot be known, as the guests selected from a menu of thumbelina carrots and New York strip steak washed down with Californian Chardonnay.

The important discussions had already taken place, in private meetings held in side rooms at the Florida venue, between the president and his defense secretary, James Mattis, and secretary of state Rex Tillerson.

What is known is that less than two hours after the dinner began, 59 Tomahawk missiles slammed into a Syrian airfield in the first direct US attack on the regime of Bashar al-Assad since civil war broke out in that country six years ago.

Less than three hours after the dinner began, Trump was standing in front of a podium in a makeshift Situation Room, Mar-a-Lago style.



He addressed the nation for the first time as someone who had been bloodied in the heavy burden of ordering military action as commander-in-chief of the world’s leading superpower.

Looking serious to match the part, with sweat on his brow, he invoked God, infants and American justice to explain to the world his surprise assault.

“My fellow Americans,” he began. “On Tuesday, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians using a deadly nerve agent.

“Assad choked out the lives of innocent men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack.

Then came his first invocation of God: “No child of God should ever suffer such horror.”

“Tonight I ordered a targeted military strike,” he said, staring intently at the autocue to which, uncharacteristically, he remained faithful. He said he had acted in response to Assad’s “horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians”.



He went on in the same grave tone: “There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the chemical weapons convention, and ignored the urging of the UN security council.”

Later in the brief address he appealed for “God’s wisdom as we face the challenge of our very troubled world”. And he sustained the religious theme with a call to prayer “for the lives of the wounded and for the souls of those who have passed”.

He ended in a Trump-like fashion: “Goodnight and god bless America and the entire world. Thank you.”

There was none of the callous name-calling against his predecessor, Barack Obama, that had marked Trump’s initial response to the Syrian chemical attack. But there was a thinly-veiled dig at the cautious strategy of the Obama administration, with the remark that “years of previous attempts at changing Assad’s behavior have all failed, and failed very dramatically.”

Still, the moment he pressed the military button, and the cruise missiles took flight, the moment of blaming Obama had passed. This was Trump’s war now.

What the Chinese president, already bemused perhaps by having been hosted at an official state dinner convened at a luxury Trump resort, made of it all is anyone’s guess. Xi’s delegation pulled out in a motorcade from Mar-a-Lago at 8.51pm – six minutes after the Tomahawks began to hit their targets.