1/ To play devils advocate on recent events, and try to make a good faith defense of the Trump administrations actions: 

Since 2001, the US has been occupied by a non stop series of events that, at the time, seemed extremely urgent, but in retrospect, probably didn’t really matter.

2001 Counter terrorism in Afghanistan 
2003 Preemptively invading Iraq
Counter insurgency for the next 10 years
2011 Arab spring = supporting fledgling democracies in the Middle East
2014 Russia annexes Crimea
2015 Syrian civil war
Iran nuclear deal, Palestine questions, etc, etc.

All the while, China has become a growing threat to the American way of life.

1/ To play devils advocate on recent events, and try to make a good faith defense of the Trump administrations actions: 

Since 2001, the US has been occupied by a non stop series of events that, at the time, seemed extremely urgent, but in retrospect, probably didn’t really matter.

2001 Counter terrorism in Afghanistan 
2003 Preemptively invading Iraq
Counter insurgency for the next 10 years
2011 Arab spring = supporting fledgling democracies in the Middle East
2014 Russia annexes Crimea
2015 Syrian civil war
Iran nuclear deal, Palestine questions, etc, etc.

All the while, China has become a growing threat to the American way of life. https://youtu.be/vskdv9eH8kQ?si=vDo7g2k_Peamar4M&t=287

Building https://canine.sh
Developer of https://mintables.club

There’s not a good faith argument to make for bad faith actions

everything i write here is financial advice

the grand strategy *is* personal egos—its personal egos and ethnocentric nationalism all the way down

I actually agree with you, I think the nature of the Oval Office meeting seemed like the U.S. changed course on foreign policy purely because of personal egos, not any actual grand strategy.