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It is tempting to speculate that U.S. President Donald Trump is trying to align with Russia in a bid to weaken China.

That puts Washington’s rapid peace diplomacy over the Ukraine conflict into a more cynical perspective. The real objective, so the reasoning goes, is not to achieve peace based on genuine principle and humanitarian concern, but rather for the Trump administration to ingratiate Russia as a way to gain leverage over China.

The alleged policy is labeled a “reverse Kissinger.” It refers to the geopolitical overture by the administration of Richard Nixon in the early 1970s when he made the daring visit to Red China. Nixon’s foreign relations guru, Henry Kissinger, was credited with masterminding that ambitious policy to engage the People’s Republic of China – with the aim of undermining the Soviet Union. To a degree, back then, the stealthy move was a success, and it consolidated Kissinger’s image as a Machiavellian genius.

A half-century later, is the Trump administration attempting to court detente with Russia for the bigger purpose of isolating and weakening China?

Trump’s diplomatic outreach to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a bid to end the conflict in Ukraine has caused international shockwaves, especially among America’s European allies. They feel sidelined and are fretting that Trump may produce a peace deal with Putin without Europe’s input.

On the other hand, there is speculation in Western media that China is concerned that Moscow may be prized from its partnership with Beijing by Washington making concessions to Russia’s territorial claims in former Ukraine. Russia is also demanding that Ukraine cannot become a member of the NATO military alliance.

Trump’s contempt for NATO and perceived European “freeloaders” may be such that the U.S. president throws them under a bus in a potent gesture to Moscow that he is dealing with “root causes” of conflict.

If Trump is determined to pivot U.S. policy toward confronting China as the priority threat to American national security, then making concessions to Russia over Ukraine, NATO and Europe might be considered a good investment.

However, the trouble in this modern-day Machiavellian game is that Russia and China seem to be well aware of the ploy.

This week, on the third anniversary of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, President Putin held a much-publicized phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The two leaders reaffirmed their “no limits” partnership and emphasized that the Russia-China strategic relationship was not vulnerable to “external influence”.

This can be seen as a pointed message to Washington that any notions of splitting Russia and China are futile.

During the Cold War in the late 1960s and 70s, the Soviet Union had strained relations with Red China. At that time, they were vulnerable to the Nixon administration’s triangular intrigues of playing one against the other.

Today, though, Russia and China have a completely different relationship. Under Putin and Xi, the two nations have built a robust alliance based on enormous economic, trade, energy, and technological interests. Russia’s trade with China vastly outweighs Russia’s trade with the U.S. Moscow knows that the U.S. could never replace China. But the calculation is much deeper than mere trade figures. Putin and Xi have invested in the geopolitical and philosophical view of creating a multipolar world, one that surpasses American ambitions of hegemonic dominance.

The idea of playing Russia off China is child’s play for Putin and Xi. The Americans are delusional if they think such a ruse could work.

One can understand how a “reverse Kissinger” speculation is conceived. Sure enough, the Trump administration contains some hawkish anti-China figures. Secretary of State Marco Rubio again this week reiterated that China is the “biggest ever” existential threat to the U.S. He was speaking in the context of the peace diplomacy with Russia over Ukraine.

Other figures in the Trump administration, like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, are also gung-ho about increasing U.S. military power in the Asia-Pacific to confront China.

This week, too, the Trump administration has caused alarm in Beijing over its release of up to $5.3 billion in military aid to Taiwan, which China sees as a direct assault on its sovereignty over the breakaway island.

Nevertheless, it is worth retaining a skeptical view that Trump is attempting a low-ball move on China by duping Russia.

For a start, it doesn’t seem feasible, given the formidable political and economic partnership between Russia and China. Not to mention the intelligence of the Russian and Chinese leadership, making it extremely unlikely that they would be gulled by such a sordid ploy.

Secondly, the U.S. media outlets that are mostly pushing the speculation about a “reverse Nixon” or “reverse Kissinger” hidden agenda are those outlets that were aligned with the previous Biden administration.

Since Trump made his breakthrough phone call with Putin on February 12, thereafter has seen a flurry of speculation about China feeling worried.

China has welcomed the new impetus for peace in Ukraine, but that has not stopped U.S. outlets like CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post from pushing the angle that Beijing is somehow concealing its anxiety about Russia backsliding in its commitment to China to purportedly gain concessions from Trump over Ukraine.

These U.S. outlets were strongly supportive of Biden’s pro-Ukraine war against Russia. Of course, the proxy war was dressed up in chivalrous lies about defending Ukrainian democracy and sovereignty. CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post were dutifully serving the imperialist agenda of waging a war to defeat Russia.

Now that Trump has announced he wants to shut down that war, the U.S. imperialist establishment (or deep state) is alarmed that its war racket is finished. It will try anything to derail Trump’s policy.

This is where the speculation about Trump supposedly seducing Russia’s betrayal of China comes in. Trump may well have no intention of playing Russia off China. It is rather a baseless conjuring by Trump’s political enemies who want to keep the proxy war in Ukraine going.

In other words, it’s not Trump attempting a “reverse Kissinger”, it’s his enemies within the U.S. state.

If doubts can be sown between Russia and China by CIA-driven media speculation, then that could serve to sabotage a productive engagement between Moscow and the Trump administration to get a deal done in Ukraine.