You aren't wrong in outcome but again, context: China was a very different thing back then, unlike what it has become today. As such, the view was a strong trade partner: USA in the West, China in the East. Remember we helped them a great deal in WWII and relations were better until Mao took over. Was wishful thinking they were perhaps the same China from WWII so policy was driven from that. They took a chance, rolled the dice and came up snake eyes. It was a gamble we lost on, in the end (present day). Unforseen consequences in that there is no way Nixon could have predicted the China we now know.

Nixon also didn't do it alone, remember that. He was just as much manipulated into taking the deal as Trump was in some of his due to deepstate staff and other Fed positions.

I'm gonna stick by what I said, Fren. Nixon was a good guy caught between a rock and a hard place. Maybe if he had the technology we have today, maybe he would have been the original Trump....who knows.