Trump is trying to separate Russia and China

So, first, no Trump is not a Russian agent. But, he is trying to get close to Russia, and this is deliberate. He's considerably more cordial to Putin than Biden was, and has treated Putin with a lot of respect.

I found it interesting when he said something to the effect of (I forget the exact quote), "If I verbally attack Putin while the world is watching, he won't be very interested in making a deal".

I thought it was an interesting point, and good diplomacy. The point is not whether or not Putin is the aggressor here, the point is, if Trump continues to treat him like the aggressor, that's what he will be.

Trump has realized that China is a far bigger threat to the United States than Russia will ever be, and this is why he wants to avoid antagonizing Putin, because once the war is over, he wants closer ties with Russia at the expense of China. He wants to drive a wedge between the two nations to start trying to isolate China.

Sure, Russia has been ideologically opposed to the West for decades, and it will be a difficult relationship to form. But I think its one of the best ways for Trump to weaken China's position on the world stage.

USAID, incidentally, is another one - if done right. The problem with USAID wasn't that it existed, the problem was that it was just a money laundering front for corrupt politicians. If it did what it was meant to - buy influence for the USA abroad - Trump might have kept it. As it stands, he realized he had no choice but to shut everything down to undo the corrupt networks before he can rebuild it to actually enhance American hegemony abroad. That certainly wasn't happening when we were paying for transgender theatre plays and comic books.

He has now got Europe to investment in rearmament. This isn't because he expects further conflict with Russia (the status quo was quite effective at keeping Russia from making any real progress even while the Europeans were sending Russia money), it's because he knows that at some point in the future, China will start becoming more ambitious, and the USA will need European help to counter that. He had no other way of getting the Europeans to take their own military seriously.

I don't think the tariffs have anything to do with this, and I don't even think they have anything to do with Europe having unfair trade deals with the USA. I think he wants to provide incentives for firms to locate manufacturing in the USA, which will benefit American workers once it is done. Just look at what globalism did - being a factory worker used to be a highly paid role until all the jobs went to China.