It feels like every pick of this administration is just someone who has a motivation for corruption.
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I expected a repeat of his first term. Which honestly was quite uneventful. This is not.
I figure the people who want the US to withdraw from the global stage have been working on Trump ever since 1987 when he paid for that full page pro-tariff ad in the New York Times. Power hungry maniacs are a dime a dozen, but ones that are also hell bent on committing economic suicide are a scarce resource and need to be nurtured with care if you want them to actually do it.
It's what I'd do if the US was bullying me around. It's a well tested play (refined during the US interventions in South America in the 70's and 80's).
A headline from the times during that same year: TRUMP GIVES A VAGUE HINT OF CANDIDACY (https://archive.is/xF2pW)
As much as I dislike advertising in general, and specifically the opinions in that ad, I think that whether the New York Times was willing to publish it is not the important detail here.
This was at a time when the US and China were working together to keep the USSR in check while at the same time the US was sending weapons to Taiwan so that they could be used to keep China in check. So imagine being China in 1991. The USSR has just fallen, so they're no longer a threat, but US-sold weapons are still being pointed at you from Taiwan. You'd want the US to leave you alone and stop arming your enemies. And here's this candidate who wants the US to step off the world stage and focus instead on what it can build alone at home.
It seems pretty likely that they'd be in favor of getting Trump elected. Whether they ultimately did is an open question, but if so then it's not shame on the New York Times, but shame on us for not better protecting ourselves against foreign interference.