I don’t think anyone is going to buy into the idea that Reagan was trying to exploit trade with Russia while trying to bankrupt it.
We sure have a lot of folks on the forum today trying to take Reagan to task to justify what they want to do today.
It would be nice if just once it was addressing the same issue on the same scale.
Again, I am not defending our current situation with China. I can assume the Reagan wouldn't be too pleased with it either. But I can also assume that Reagan, through his belief in free markets, would have been pondering some way to introduce it to the Chinese. We know that he lectured the Soviets on the subject nearly every chance he got.